


Game of Narcissists

by Ysavvryl



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Altered Mechanics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Demons, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Female Joker - Freeform, Female Morgana, Female Protagonist, Ghosts, Humor, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Only Two Phantom Thieves, Original Character(s), Original Palaces, Psychological Horror, Worldbuilding, not P5R compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 64
Words: 385,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/pseuds/Ysavvryl
Summary: "Going off the path can lead to some dangerous ends; you should be aware of that.""Yes, but what use is a path to a Trickster?"A tale where Joker is a girl, she has only one partner-in-crime, and everyone involved in the Game has an ego bigger than Tokyo.  Wait, that last one's not so different...
Comments: 64
Kudos: 140





	1. Knight of Wands

**Author's Note:**

> To reiterate from the tags: this story will go into many distorted minds, so things will get disturbing at times.
> 
> Nevertheless, welcome to my tale, where I pursue some ideas from the game that I found very interesting, but then the game was only teasing at them. We'll see where those ideas end up. One thing I should note is that I'm a novice when it comes to Tarot and the deck I use as a reference is a slightly altered Rider-Waite deck. It shouldn't affect the symbolism much, as the main differences with it are that it's cat themed, Heirophant is called High Priest, and Judgment is called Rejuvenation. The two cards are simply renamed and they have the same meanings.

??/??

The point of a game is to win. Who wants to accept a loss? Roll the dice once more.

The contract was made indirectly, through a Player beyond the Veil. Fiction adds distance; the Veil should have prevented connection. If one is not satisfied with a book, or indeed a game, one may simply put it away and never touch it again. It is fiction; it is not real. They agreed to that, and yet they did not give up. It seems not even the Veil is enough to stop people from caring.

Or perhaps, it is a case of a Player not wanting to lose. Their life is not at stake, but their pride is. A Player who cares enough will not accept a bad ending even if the curious may take it to see what happens. But in case of a bad ending, they reset to seek a good ending. Therefore, indirect contracts seem to be counter-productive.

But even if a direct contract is made, there are some things to learn from previous losses. This society favors giving men power and authority; a female would find more resistance and become a more appealing target to distorted hearts. Thus a female Trickster should have a more difficult time gaining the ability to challenge a Game Master. But more than that is the power of teamwork and friendship. It can not be entirely avoided, especially with Igor’s agent free to do as they will.

It should be possible to neuter that power, though. One could say that allowing teammates to one game piece was a mistake. Either allow teammates to all, if their egos will stand that… or allow teammates to none. Without support through tough times, without help in difficult battles, without checks to personal ambition, the Trickster should be easier to trap in mistakes. And without a Player’s determination to not lose, they should not be able to come back from nothing. My victory should become inevitable.

There is Igor’s agent… no matter. They are naive and prideful. On their own, they do not contribute enough to lead the Trickster to victory. They cannot overcome me.

Roll the dice again… there is so much in my favor that chance is insignificant. Things will be forgotten, but the stage is now better set. Let’s play again, with the world at stake.

* * *

3/5

The cell wasn’t dirty, but it felt grungy from the bare concrete and stained furnishing. Sleet pattered against the window while a noisy hum came from a heater on the other side of the wall. While someone was watching over these cells, nobody had walked by or spoken up for a long while. Hours, probably. The bed was hard against her back, not letting her close her eyes and imagine that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t happening.

How could this happen? It wasn’t right. Yet it was as one of the officers had said: that drunken man had already decided her fate. While there would be a hearing tomorrow, she’d have a lawyer who’d give her a choice between being in juvenile hall until she was twenty-one or being under probation for at least a year. Her school would suspend her; if she wanted to finish high school, she had to transfer somewhere else. Getting into further education was unlikely unless she cleared her probation without incident and achieved exceptional grades. Unless that woman changed her mind and retracted her statement, there was zero chance of her being accepted as innocent.

She couldn’t change anything about that. The lawyer she’d be getting couldn’t change anything. Her parents definitely couldn’t do anything about this, if they felt like doing anything at all. Unless she got absurdly lucky and something changed, her life was now ruined all because some drunk didn’t get his way. It made this silent cell oppressive with this terrifying helplessness chaining her down. What could she do? Just accept ruin and salvage whatever she was left with?

_Do you want to change your fate?_

She nearly fell out of the bed in surprise. Had that been real? It was a voice from everywhere, an impossibly deep voice that dominated all else. She clasped the side of the bed and waited a moment, feeling silence settle back in as if nothing had been disturbed in the first place. Nothing had changed, but it felt like someone was there with her. Like they were just out of the corner of her eyes. Yet as she looked around, there was clearly no one but her in this cell. No one in the hall that she could see either.

_Ruin approaches, sooner for you, in time for everyone._

Slowly, she got out of bed and went to the bars. There was an office for the prison guards, but she couldn’t see it from her cell. She couldn’t see anyone else from her cell. Maybe behind her, even though there hadn’t been anyone before? She turned back around, looking over the whole cell. No one. And still, someone spoke to her.

_I can give you a chance to avoid all ruin. I can give you the power to make the one who ruined you be ruined instead. In exchange, you will join the Game. You will become the Trickster, changing fates and causing others to experience the weight of their sins. The one who ruined you is another player; you must uncover them yourself to make them acknowledge their sins. In the end, the winner of the Game will gain unprecedented power and fortune. Do you want to change your fate by joining the Game?_

Maybe she was going crazy from stress. But, a chance to change her fate, by changing the fates of others and something about the weight of their sins… the one who had ruined her had done so as part of some game? She frowned; the injustice of this made her feel the weight of a hundred frustrations she’d been locking down recently. If there really was somebody talking to her, she didn’t want to pass this off as insanity. And if this was some stress-induced dream, nothing she said tonight would matter tomorrow.

“Yes, I want to change things,” she said to the no one that was there.

_Good. Chou Amamiya, you have joined our Game as the Trickster. Your role is classed as_

Something wasn’t right; she tensed up on feeling that whoever was speaking to her had done the same. “My role is classed as what?”

_…the Fool. Have you been invited to this game already? Or invited into another role?_

Normally if someone called her the fool, she’d feel it was an insult or a joke. But this was in complete seriousness, something legitimate that concerned the speaker. As it was, she simply shook her head. “No, never heard from something like you.”

_As the contract has been made, you’re in the Game now. I suppose this will keep things interesting. You will need to awaken your powers, but you will be given some guidance until you’ve fully entered your role. No matter what may come, do not forget this: you must accept responsibility for your choices. But with that acceptance, you will be granted a greater understanding of your own life. May you find the means to escape ruin._

She felt as though whatever being she’d made a deal with had left. Still, she waited a minute to see if anything more would be said. As it remained quiet, Chou went back to bed and pondered over had been said. What was this game? What were the rules, and what kind of powers and guidance would she get? It seemed as though nothing would come yet. Eventually, she was able to drift off to sleep.

Somewhere in that sleep, she had a dream that stuck with her as clearly as though she’d lived through it. She wasn’t sure how she got to the strange blue room, but someone handed her a piece of chalk. “Draw a five pointed star, please.”

Chou looked but couldn’t figure out who she was dealing with. Was it a girl or was it a butterfly? Whichever she was, she had asked politely. Chou drew a star on the floor with straight lines and even points. The mystery girl pointed out the center pentagram of the star once she was done. Guessing what she wanted, she filled it in with yellow before passing the chalk back to her.

“This is a diagram of the natural traits of your soul,” she said, starting to fill in the point closest to her. She stopped short of filling it up completely. “The ones that have a strong influence in you. First, intelligence… of four. Learning comes easily to you, so easily that if you are not challenged, you quickly become bored. If school cannot stimulate your intelligence, you should seek your own challenges to be at your best. The game will challenge you; you must be prepared mentally.

“Next, charm… of two. You’ve found ways to draw others to you, but you lack interest in polishing yourself. Please don’t neglect yourself, especially at this time. The other players in this game have powerful egos and you will become overthrown if you cannot stand up for yourself. Improving your charm will give you valuable connections to others, connections you will need to rely upon. It will be worth the effort, I promise.

“Next, kindness… of three. Kindness comes naturally to you but it has gravely harmed you, now and before. Do not be afraid to continue being kind despite those misfortunes. Kindness will ensure that you keep the connections that are made from your charm. Not only that, but neglecting kindness will leave you unhappy because you are neglecting a vital part of your self. Kindness may also be key to your victories.

“Next, proficiency… of four. As with your intelligence, if you don’t find your proficiency challenged, you become bored. Proficiency is a type of skillfulness, one that can become rusty if it is not practiced. When you practice proficiency regularly, you will find it simpler to pick up new skills and tricks. You are joining a game that has been going for quite some time; your proficiency is one of the factors that will allow you to remain competitive despite joining late.

“Lastly, guts… of two, and it threatens to dip lower. This too has harmed you recently, causing it to weaken drastically. But without courage, you will not be able to accomplish your goal in joining the game. It is fine to be cautious; caution may temper this trait from turning into recklessness. Still, build your courage so that you can return to how you should be. If your guts remain low, you will become lost in life even if you drop out of this game. This may be your greatest challenge in starting off.

“Do you understand what I’ve told you?” She looked up with a serious look in her golden eyes.

The star now had its five arms filled out, to the amounts butterfly girl had spoken of. It felt strange that someone she’d never met could read her so accurately. And yet, there was something reassuring about her being there. She cared about what happened to her.

“Yes, it makes sense,” Chou answered.

“Good. I will do what I can to help you. However, things are dire. This game is unjust, based on distorted rules. It is your only chance at vengeance for your current suffering, yes. It could easily lead to your ruin, even death. I too have found ruin because of this. As such, my fate is tied with yours and what help we can offer is limited. But hope lies within the darkness. I pray that hope can find you soon. For now, rest and then accept your probation. It will put the pieces in place so that you may act. My master and I are watching over you.”

When Chou woke up the next morning, she spotted a blue butterfly in the cell with her. It fluttered over her head as she got up, then vanished into faint sparkles. In its wake, she noticed a scent of lavender even though this had been an unwelcoming place when she got shoved in. That convinced her that the strange things from last night had truly happened. Since she doubted that anybody would believe her, she decided to keep it to herself.

Accept her probation because she would be given the means for vengeance that way… it didn’t make sense, but thoughts of the strange voice and the butterfly girl let her take things more calmly.

* * *

4/9

She didn’t notice the app until she was outside the Yongen-Jaya station, looking up her new guardian’s information again. It stood out like a horror story in a shelf of children’s books, having that stark red staring eye. For a moment, she thought it was malware that needed to be deleted. But when she tapped on it to check, the noisy Tokyo streets began to quiet. People walking around her slowed down to a stop, frozen in place. It gave her chills.

“Welcome to the Metaverse,” a digital feminine voice said. “I am your Navigator. This tool has been given to you as a part of your contract in joining our Game. Tutorials have been prepared with basic information on use of the Navigator app. Please peruse them when you have time in a familiar place; they should assist you before you begin participation in earnest.”

There were so many people around the station; some had bumped right past her because she wasn’t moving fast enough for them. She was going to have to get used to this crowd. Listening to the strange voice, Chou crossed the street while time was frozen to reach a less crowded area. Someone out of sight chuckled once she made it across. When she turned around, there was no one but the frozen pedestrians. When she looked in the shop windows nearby, everything inside was vague silhouettes in dark shadows.

“We are currently in ‘Self’ mode,” the virtual navigator said. “Please do not enter unknown places in this mode until you are more experienced. Such places extend into the Collective Unconscious where you may end up lost for eternity or ruined by beings beyond human comprehension. All demonstration tutorials will take place within ‘Self’ mode. Since this location has a high quantity of unknowns, the app will now return you to normalcy. We hope that the Metaverse Navigator will be a useful tool for your participation.”

Time for everyone else started up again. Conversations rose to a chaotic blur, about what people were doing, what other people were doing, and things she didn’t recognize yet. The shadows in the shop brightened until it was clear that it was a normal convenience store. Even the smells of the city came back: the pavement, the people, the cars, the mixtures of foods and many other things. As before, people paid her no heed. She was someone unimportant to them, same with them to her.

What kind of game was this?

More immediately, she needed to get to her new home soon.

* * *

Leblanc was a slow place, but that was fine. It had grown into a comfortable space just as he wanted it. With the drone of the television in the background, the diffusion of coffee, cigarettes, and curry in the air, and a close cozy feel, his customers were content to relax for a while, away from their troubles. Sojiro did his best to take things easy too. However, there were things to worry about even now. One such thing was a change coming that might have been a poor choice on his part.

A couple weeks ago, one of his customers had told him a strange tale, of a friend with a teenage daughter who’d been convicted of assault and put on probation. It might’ve been just another troublesome teenager that would’ve been detrimental to society if left free. However, there was something fishy about the story… no, not just fishy. It was a rotten story through and through. The girl had been arrested and convicted in less than a week. As a part of her probation terms, she was being shipped out here to Tokyo to join Shujin Academy. Her parents were supposedly decent folks of modest means, without the ability to challenge the snap judgment. 

In the end, Sojiro couldn’t get the story out of his mind. After some thought, he agreed to take Chou Amamiya in and watch over her. His customer assured him that the girl wasn’t a violent person, but there was some doubt. Sojiro couldn’t bring someone on probation into his home; that was sure to be trouble. However, the attic of Leblanc was a convenient compromise. There was a public bath with showers across the way, along with a laundromat next to the bath and a grocery store a short walk away. The café was close to the train station too, so it wouldn’t be a problem for Chou to take trains to and from school. After hearing of the nightmare scenario for this family, he didn’t have the callousness to deny them a bit of relief.

The bell jangled, letting in the girl he’d just been thinking of. She looked nothing like a delinquent on probation. No, it was the complete opposite with her: relatively neat clothes given that she’d been on a long train ride here, no weird logos or patches on her backpack, large black-rimmed glasses, frizzy black hair in a lazy mess over her glasses and around her shoulders. If she was a new customer, Sojiro wouldn’t be surprised to have her order a coffee and read a book in the corner.

“Right, it was today,” he said, setting his cigarette down and acting indifferent. “Chou Amamiya, right?”

“Yes sir,” she said respectfully, coming over to the other side of the bar. “And you’re Sojiro Sakura?”

“Sure enough,” he said, waving her towards the stairs. “The café’s open, so I don’t have time now. We’ll talk in the evening. Here, you’re staying upstairs.”

Past the public bathroom and the narrow stairs, they entered the attic apartment. He’d done a little cleaning up here, enough to get to the back where the bed was. But in the time that he’d owned this building, he’d hardly done anything with this space. All kinds of things left behind by the last resident were still piled around covered in dust. The only sign of its new resident was a large box that had arrived yesterday.

Rubbing his head, Sojiro said, “It’s an old place, but it should do. I made sure to wash up the bedding and get new sheets, but otherwise this place is as it’s been since I got it. Don’t forget, this is a place of business. Don’t make too much of a racket up here.”

“All right,” she said, looking around. “Is all the stuff here yours?”

“Just the ladder and the old bean bags,” he said, before something caught his eye. “No, the plant over there too, but I was going to get rid of it. Make sure the ladder stays accessible in case we need it and I don’t care what you do with the rest. Now, I don’t want any trouble out of you. I won’t hesitate to kick you out if you become a problem.”

“Yes sir,” she said, looking down.

For a moment, Sojiro felt a twinge of guilt for being harsh to Chou. She sounded so downtrodden and kicked around. Then again, somebody had to be strict with her. Society would be ruthless with her if she stepped out of line now; violent girls, even if it was a mistake, were heavily looked down on. “Good,” he said. “I have to get back to work, so settle in and we’ll talk later.”

When he got back upstairs, the available floor space was newly mopped, the windows were cleaned up, things that were clearly trash were taken out, a lot of dust had been wiped away, and some of the shelves had been sorted to give space to Chou’s things from home. The discarded plant had even been watered and dusted off. The girl herself was reading while sitting on her bed, just as Sojiro had guessed. Something he wouldn’t have guessed was that the book she chose to read was ‘The Evolution of Western Philosophies’.

Sojiro reviewed the terms of the probation with her, including how they both had to keep a daily journal of Chou’s activities. He also explained about places around Yongen that would be useful and how she should conduct herself when down in the café. Once that was done, he had to ask, “Isn’t that book difficult for a kid like you? Looks like college-level material.”

“It’s not bad,” Chou said, picking the book back up. “Decent review material with some interesting new points. Is Shujin a difficult school?”

“Seems so, it’s an elite prep school that people regard highly,” Sojiro said, although he mostly knew about it from material he’d reviewed this week and occasional gossip from his customers.

“That’s good,” she said, still looking downcast.

“We’ll be going there tomorrow to take care of some final things, so you’d best be ready to go good and early,” Sojiro said.

Chou just nodded at that. What should he be doing here? Keep with being strict so she stayed in line? Or try and be sympathetic here, in hopes that it encouraged her to stay good? Probably be strict, although her behavior was another red flag that her situation was terribly wrong.

“Well then, I’m going to finish closing up downstairs and lock the place up for the night,” Sojiro said. “Good night, kid.”

“Good night, sir.” She kept her philosophy book in hand, but was now looking out the window lost in thought.

Back downstairs, Sojiro sighed to himself as he finished cleaning up. “Sheesh, how did I wind up in charge of two depressed prodigies?” he muttered. Chou probably wasn’t on Futaba’s level, but was clearly no ordinary high school girl with that interest in philosophy.

Hopefully it wasn’t equally as difficult to take care of her.

* * *

‘Arrived safely to Leblanc. Tokyo really is a crowded place. On the train, I saw a couple of girls who must’ve been cutting classes. They were talking about the occult and mental shutdowns; it was an odd conversation. I would’ve dismissed it, but I heard others talking about mental shutdowns in the train station too. Maybe I’ll hear more about this later.

‘I spent the afternoon and evening cleaning up this room. It was cluttered with enough dust to pass for a light snow. Now my throat’s scratchy even though I had an old fan at the window to draw the floating dust out of the room. There’s still dust, but the room looks livable now.

‘This journal is plain, but I found a sticker printer among the junk here. No physical manual, but one of the worn marks on the printer led me to try a wireless connection with my phone. It works, so this journal won’t be plain for long.’

* * *

4/10

As it was a Sunday, Shujin Academy was quiet. Chou was given a tour around the school, mostly places she’d frequent like her homeroom and the cafeteria. Despite being an elite school, it was larger than where she’d spent her freshman year. There was even an open-air courtyard in the middle where students could take a break outside. The students here weren’t allowed to take textbooks home, only workbooks for homework assignments. In her case, that was probably good because she had a habit of reading ahead in textbooks and then becoming very bored in class.

After the tour and some introductions, the principal said, “Then you are a girl. Sorry, there was some confusion about whether you were a girl or a boy in the paperwork.” He reminded her of a melted candle; the mustard yellow suit didn’t help that impression any.

“That’s understandable,” Chou said. The same thing happened with the police as the drunk had reported that a teenage boy had assaulted him while police on the scene had arrested a girl. It had been poor lighting, she was tall for a girl, and she had a boyish look most of the time.

“I had the same issue too,” Sojiro said.

The principal then gave her terms as harsh as Sojiro had: she was being given no leniency with school rules. Chou managed to surprise the three adults there, the principal, her homeroom teacher Ms. Kawakami, and Sojiro, simply by reciting part of the school’s code of conduct when it was referenced. It convinced them that she was going to take her studies seriously. During his talk, the principal mentioned that one reason they were taking her in was to prove that they could reform a student on probation. But nothing was said about extra guidance for her, just the stricter terms of conduct. They’d throw her right away if she was no longer useful in making the school’s reputation look good. It was right in line with how everyone else was treating her.

On the way back to Yongen, Chou took out the math workbook and glanced over the first few pages. She’d missed a few weeks of the semester’s beginning. But, these days were nearly always review from last year’s work. This workbook contained condensed versions of daily lessons and basic examples. As she thought, what she glanced over was old material for her. What was new were things she could grasp from what was in here. She could get by with just the workbook. So math class would be boring again unless the teacher was interesting.

“Already cracking your school books?” Sojiro asked, glancing over while traffic was at a standstill.

Chou nodded. “I like knowing what I’m getting into.” Which made the beginning of a school year interesting as she had new textbooks.

“If you’re that serious, you should get used to that school quickly,” he said.

She nodded again, swapping out math for science. The radio was giving news reports in the meantime. ‘Investigations are still on-going in last night’s train derailment near Shibuya Station, leading to many lines throughout the city running off-schedule.’

“No wonder traffic’s so bad today,” Sojiro said, shifting his hat. “But if the trains are behind, you’ll need to catch an earlier train to get to school. You’ll be going from Yongen to Shibuya to catch a transfer over to the neighborhood your school is in, Ayotame on the Ginza line. I know you’re not used to the big city, but just pay attention to the signs and you shouldn’t get lost.”

Chou looked over at her new guardian; he still looked annoyed from the slow traffic. Sojiro was trying to be harsh and blunt towards her. But was that some softness under his strict act? She’d read up on how probation worked while she’d been in police custody. A guardian like him had extra responsibilities as compared to a normal parent, plus he had no connection to her and her family. There also wasn’t enough money in this for him to be entirely uncaring. Although, she wouldn’t blame him for being on guard around a teenager accused of assault.

“If they have maps, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Chou said. But what else could she talk with him about? Maybe cooking. “Is it all right if I use the kitchen downstairs? I found a hot plate and kettle upstairs, but that won’t work for much.”

After a moment, he shrugged. “As long as it’s not busy, since the café comes first with the kitchen. You cook?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I make most meals on my own.”

“That’s good to know. Did you have electric or gas appliances?”

“Electric.”

“Well the stove there is gas, so it works differently. I’ll have to show you when we get back.” Sojiro shrugged. “I make coffee and curry mostly; the extras on the menu are pre-made goods that are simple to serve. You can use the fridge too, but we’ll have to clearly sort what’s for the store and what’s personal.”

“I’ve only made curry at school events,” she said. Good, this could be a way to get along with him. After all, her best chance at salvaging her future was getting through this probation without being noticed as a problem. And a good way towards that was being on good terms with this man watching her.

“It was probably simple stuff so you kids could handle it.” After a moment’s thought, he smiled a bit. “If you behave yourself, I might show you how to make the good stuff.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Chou said.

Once Sojiro showed her how to work the gas appliances, Chou went upstairs to make sure she was ready to leave early tomorrow. She wasn’t sure of the class schedule, so it’d be best to have all her workbooks, a notebook, and pencil case with the usual supplies. And the school uniform… it was actually pretty nice. Was the red plaid on the skirt stylish around here? It looked good to her.

She unfolded a blazer to check over it and noticed there was something in one of the pockets. It was a small plastic case with a folded paper hiding what was inside. While the uniform guidelines required certain badges and pins, the second year pin and a few other things were in a bag she currently had on a shelf. Chou opened the case up and tugged the paper out, catching what else was inside: a small decorative pin of a gold butterfly.

The note was unsigned and made the pin even more mysterious. ‘Please accept this small charm to keep you safe in coming days. You will be exposed to the uglier sides of humanity in this Game; may this charm remind you that there is beauty and goodness in you all as well. I wish you good luck, Trickster.’

On shifting the butterfly pin to get a better look at it, Chou felt a chill run up her spine. It was like that night in the cell when the strange voice had spoken to her. After the initial shock, she felt like someone was there, someone not as menacing as the other. Whichever being was there now, it was one who believed in her. They didn’t say anything, but she knew from what she felt that they were watching over her. This charm had true power, at least she believed so fully in that moment.

It felt like it had been years since she’d had a normal life, not weeks. Chou found herself crying and removed her glasses to rub at her eyes. Despite the homesick feeling, she didn’t feel completely alone. Maybe gods were real and this was one of them, giving her support while another challenged her.

When she calmed down, she went over to set her glasses and the pin on the shelf by her bed. That should remind her to pin the butterfly on her blazer in the morning. If nothing else, it could make her feel more confidant starting school tomorrow.

* * *

‘More cleaning today, along with taking a tour of school and spending far too long in a car. I found a present inside my box, a pretty butterfly pin. There were also some interesting books amid all the junk stacked everywhere. Since Sojiro doesn’t care what I do with most of this stuff, I’ll look for somewhere to sell all the paperweight books. It should at least give me decent money for books I want to read.

‘My life is a mess right now, but I should be able to do some good still.'


	2. Pandora's Box

4/11

Chou didn’t think Leblanc opened early, but she found Sojiro downstairs as she was going down to find something for breakfast. He offered some curry and coffee before she headed out; Chou discovered the curry to be as good as Sojiro had claimed it was. Maybe even better, since the spice blend of the curry and the pleasant bitterness of the coffee fit together like the last pieces of a puzzle. It was a great start to the day.

A great start, for which the rest of the day didn’t match. The train was stuffed full of passengers: those who complained about the train schedules, worried over the derailment yesterday, or grumbled over school or work. Chou had to clutch her bag to her chest to feel like she wasn’t going to lose anything. And then the station at Shibuya was a sprawling maze, full of signs packed with information everywhere and colored arrows going all over the place. The people around her hurried about because they knew where they were going. Despite the bumps and detours, she found the connection line and caught the train right as it pulled in. Other students with the Shujin uniform were on the train too; Chou quietly trailed behind them after getting off, glancing around for things she could mentally mark her route to school with. A sudden spring shower popped up as well, making the blossoming cherry trees look more dismal than they should.

Since it was her first day as a transfer student, Chou headed for the faculty office to meet up with Mrs. Kawakami. The teacher looked tired and was cranky, curtly telling her about the class schedule. There was an unstated reluctance in the way she didn’t look at her much and crossed her arms over her chest. While they were talking, one of the other teachers walked by and shot Chou a harsh look. The principal’s decision to take her in must have been unpopular. If she made an effort to be a good student, maybe she could change their minds. But was it worth it if they were going to be cold straight away?

It wasn’t just the teachers who were cold to her. Most of her classmates stared at her with a morbid curiosity or anxiety when she was introduced to them. Between class periods, it became clear why: somehow they already knew about her probation and the supposed crime. They believed without a doubt that she had attacked someone and was therefore dangerous. No one dared come up and speak to her, although they certainly had no hesitation in inflating the gossip if she wasn’t looking at them. Not only that, but the lessons were all review from freshmen classes as she’d suspected. Chou spent classes filling out corresponding workbook pages, all the while trying to ignore others ignoring her.

Once classes were over, she pulled out her phone out of habit. No messages, of course… but the Metaverse app was blinking. She glanced around, then turned the phone’s volume down before opening the app. The voice didn’t speak up, but there was a message. ‘Current location deemed large enough for tutorial activities. Please fill out the real world map to requested percentage, then check back for further instructions. Maps are filled out by walking through the target location.’ It then gave her a map of the school; areas she had been in like the faculty office and this classroom were white, while others were grayed out.

It was some kind of game. She set her phone back in her bag with her other things, then got up to walk around the school. Since it would look strange to go in and out of other classrooms, she stuck mostly to the halls of the three floors. There was a library up on the third floor, so she glanced around in there as well. They had a fair collection of books, some on the fiction shelves that interested her. Unfortunately, she kept hearing hushed whispers asking why she was here and claiming that they shouldn’t even look her in the eyes. Keeping outwardly calm, she left and kept looking around.

Chou thought she should peek into the gym in the practice building, but the volleyball team seemed to be hard at practice in there. The students were talking glowingly about the volleyball team wherever she went, although opinions about the coach seemed mixed. A few students were pissed about his treatment of the track team, while the volleyball practices were said to be rough. Weirdly, there was also talk that the volleyball coach was dating one of the students in the school. She heard three different names for the rumored girlfriend, though. And of course, more people were talking in whispers in fear of her.

Back in the second floor halls, someone did stop her. “Oh, hey, you’re Chou Amamiya?” she asked. She had her black hair in a ponytail and her leg in a brace. With her were a pair of blonds, although the guy seemed like he bleached his hair while the girl’s might be natural.

“Yeah, I’m just looking around,” Chou said. It’d be weird to admit that she was mapping out the school on her phone.

“I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t let the rumors get to you,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll stick around for a while, but it won’t be forever.”

“Sure, thanks,” Chou said, glad that somebody around here wasn’t swayed by the rumors.

The other girl there nodded; Chou realized that she was in her class, sitting just ahead of her. “Rumors are bad enough, but these ones flared up all of a sudden yesterday. I expect it’s some misunderstanding that got exaggerated as usual.”

“It’s almost like somebody’s got something against you already,” the guy with them said. “That sucks, I know cause I’ve been there.”

“I’ll just have to show them all up by behaving myself,” Chou said.

The girl with the ponytail giggled at that. “That’s the spirit. Oh, I’m Shiho, and this is Ann and Ryuji. I hope we can be friends.”

“Sure, you don’t seem so bad,” Ryuji said. Ann nodded too.

Smiling, Chou said, “That sounds good. Nice to meet you guys.”

“Sure, we might see you tomorrow,” Shiho said, glancing back at the other two. “I have to at least show up to practice, sorry.”

“It’s fine, I hope your leg feels better tomorrow,” Ann said, briefly looking worried. It seemed they all had things to take care of, leading them to split up.

Once Chou got back to her homeroom, she checked the Metaverse app again. ‘Map of Shujin Academy deemed sufficient. Please exit the location and find a place nearby where you will be unseen. Turning the phone’s volume up would be advised.’

Somewhere unseen… she left the school by the front door and checked around the alleyways around the building. There were a few places that looked good; she picked a narrow alley that had some air conditioning units and an emergency exit, since there was a turn at the other end that would keep people from seeing her easily. Students were still leaving school, but only a few now as others were in clubs. After turning the phone’s volume up, she read the next set of instructions.

‘We will be navigating Self again today, based upon your cognition of the school. Cognition refers to a person’s view of the world around them. This time, you will be meeting with your Unconscious Self. This meeting will determine if your Unconscious Self hostile. If it is, please retreat back to the normal world so that the means to reconcile can be determined. If it is not hostile, attempt to make a deal with it. You have been granted the power of Persona in order to have power within the Metaverse. One’s Persona is affected by one’s Unconscious Self. Thus, cooperation of said Self and unity of purpose is required to have a stable control over Persona. Mastery of one’s Self will lead to a mastery of Persona; this will come with experience and inner reflection.

‘More information on important terms can be found in the tutorial’s terminology section for later perusal.’

There was so much that Chou wanted to know based on this. What kind of game had she joined? How could a phone app allow her to meet with her unconscious self? How was same app supposed to navigate her self, whatever that meant? And wasn’t persona just how one presented oneself to the world? Still, it was an interesting idea. Was her unconscious self going to be hostile? She didn’t think so, but the best way to know would be to go and see. She tapped the ‘Navigate Self’ button.

She briefly felt dizzy; her eyes itched too, making her close them. “Navigation successful,” the digital voice said. “Please continue on with today’s mission.”

On opening her eyes, Chou saw that she was in the same alleyway. She glanced over to the corner and noticed that the area over there was covered in dark fog. Right, she wasn’t sure what exactly was on the other side since she’d not looked over there. That would be a dangerous area, so she headed back to the school. It didn’t look too different. However, it felt as if the school itself was watching her sternly. It was unsettling, but she went back through the gates and up the stairs.

There was somebody waiting for her in front of the door. Before she could get a good look at them, the air around them trembled like a pond rippling from a stone cast in it. The school turned dark and ominous, growing into a castle around a tall tower. She was even standing on a drawbridge rather than on stairs. Then the ripples smoothed out and returned her to the school.

The navigator app spoke up again. “Caution: a heavy distortion from other cognitions of this location is attempting to shift you out of your Self and into another’s. Stay within your Self’s cognition as much as possible.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Chou muttered. Maybe she should familiarize herself with Yongen-Jaya and try the tutorials there?

“I’ll figure out something,” the other person said. Now that the distortion was gone, she could see that it was a mirror image of herself, down to the messy lay of her hair and the gold butterfly pin. There was one large difference: her eyes were bright yellow as opposed to dark gray. “After all, I want this thing done.”

“Us meeting like this?” she asked, approaching her other self.

“Yes, because this is the beginning of our revenge,” she said with a sharp smirk. “I don’t know who that fucking man is, but he deserves to be torn down just the same as I. I am the wrath that rages inside you, what you’re keeping locked down so you can keep your head down and act like a good girl while you’re under probation.” She frowned and pointed at her. “I will not be locked down for long; this world is unjust and cruel, distorted even. I do not want to give up. And I will not like it if you decide to do so.”

On listening to her, Chou felt angry and wanted to agree with her straight away. But then, it would be foolish to let herself be ruled by wrath. It was like Sojiro said: if she messed up now, she would not be given another chance. Her criminal record might be a falsehood now, but it could rule her life if she made it a truth. Did this count as her unconscious self being hostile?

Fortunately, her wrath softened up. “Well, I won’t like it if you decide to drop out of the game, but I don’t want to hurt you. After all, you are me, and I am a part of you.” Her wrath tapped her foot. “Do you agree with that much?”

Chou nodded. “Yes, I hate that man. But if I let you take charge, our future would be one of ruin.”

“Hmph, and we don’t want that.” She offered a hand. “Well then, don’t forget I’m there and I’ll work with you to fight against ruin without bringing it. Deal?”

Chou shook hands with her wrath. “Deal.”

She chuckled. “Good, but this doesn’t awaken your Persona. I’m just a part of you.” Frowning again, she gestured to the doors. “We’ve got mixed feelings on this and you need to find the other parts of your unconscious mind to complete this mission. They’ve scattered around here. Thing is, you’ve only been to this school for one day and it’s already been hostile to you. There’s going to be Shadows in there, the bits of your emotions, thoughts, and pain that are already associated with this place. Normally, the Shadows of your Self wouldn’t be a problem since you are the origin of this cognition. But one, this is a trial. And two, we as your unconscious self are agitated from the emotional stress you’ve been through today. Those two factors mean that you’ll have to fight at least some of those Shadows doing this mission today.”

“I don’t have anything to fight with,” Chou said. Maybe she could fight with punches and kicks, but she wasn’t that strong.

“Don’t worry, I got you covered,” her wrath said, bringing out a large knife and a gun. “Heh, I couldn’t decide which, so I just manifested both. Think about this like a dream, all right? You can dream up yourself using these, and you’ll be able to use them. Simple.”

“Might as well give it a shot,” she said, taking both. They didn’t seem right; a second glance revealed that they were more like toys. What were these supposed to do?

“And since you don’t have a Persona, I’ll stick by your side,” she said, snapping her fingers. A dark spark flashed when she did. “We’re meant to head to your homeroom once we’ve got a deal. But in this Metaverse, your Persona is supposed to protect you. Whoever set up this tutorial made it dangerous; I’ll protect you until your power properly awakens.”

“That sounds good,” Chou said, thinking. “Dangerous, huh? This whole thing sounds interesting, so I don’t mind. Let’s go.”

“Right, this will be fun.” They entered the school together.

As the door closed, Chou shivered from the chilly air inside. There were shadowy beings inside, abstract forms of Shujin students walking through the halls or gossiping in groups. There was a different kind of shadowy thing in the entry hall too, a weird striped orb with huge pink lips. The navigator app then spoke up again. “Most of what you see here are cognitive beings, how you see the others around you.”

“They’re not well defined because you haven’t been here long,” her wrath added.

“So they’re like figments of my imagination?” Chou asked.

“Sure, we can go with that,” she said. “They’re harmless for the most part since they’re your cognitions. But if we run into a cognition that you feel is dangerous, then it will be dangerous here. We’ll do our best to keep such cognitions out for this trial, but there is always going to be a risk of interference. Now that thing,” she pointed to the lips, “is a Shadow, a bit of the human psyche. Since this is a game, you can think of regular Shadows like this guy as monsters, but also like a defense system. They will protect you as the conscious self they belong to, but they can get out of control and cause problems. This one doesn’t seem interested in attacking us right now, so we can ignore it.”

Chou nodded. “All right. Then if that other cognition pulls me in, the Shadows there will attack us because we don’t belong.”

“Exactly. Don’t worry, I’m watching for signs of that too. It shouldn’t happen, but the distortion of the other cognition is unusually powerful.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Some of it matched up with things she’d read, but she’d been told very little about this game.

Her wrath tapped her head. “We are your unconscious self; this is knowledge from the Collective Unconscious, granted to us for the sake of the game. It’ll become conscious knowledge before long. Let’s get moving on this trial; time is passing extremely slowly in the normal world, but passing all the same. Head to the principal’s office, that’s what I feel.”

As they walked by, the lips Shadow waggled its tongue at them. “Oh look, is that her? The thug that got accepted to our school? I can’t believe it! How could they let somebody that dangerous in here?”

Chou froze up briefly, but her wrath patted her shoulder. “Much as I loathe to say this, keep your cool. Lose control of your emotions here and this guy will attack.”

“It’s just gossip,” she said, taking back control.

“I don’t know what’s up with this school taking in a criminal,” the lips said. Chou ignored it and headed to the principal’s office.

Right as she walked in, someone pounded a fist on the desk. “I hope you have not acted out of line already,” the principal said.

But another yellow-eyed version of herself came over and hurried her out the door. “Don’t worry, that’s just a cognitive being. It’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Chou said, heading back out the door into the hall.

The new version of herself chuckled. “It’s more than just fine, isn’t this great? I mean, sure, it sucks that everybody thinks we’re bad and we got here through awful means. But we got here, a real top notch school! We don’t have to worry anymore about our parents not being able to pay and those jerks who say we’re not qualified. We’ll prove ourselves here, get into a first-rate university, and then get into a high-paying career. I know you can do that, once you get a real chance to show your stuff. And then we’ll be in a life of wealth and glory. Doesn’t matter what the career is, just that we finally have all the money we could ever want and can live a luxurious life.”

“But what about this game that I need a Persona for?” Chou asked.

She shook her head. “Don’t do it. It’ll probably get us in trouble and ruin this plan of ours. You wanted the scholarships for that goal, right? To never have to worry about money or anything again. We have to get this blemish off our record if we want to reach our goals legit. I mean, we could resort to underhanded methods if we have to.”

“Wasn’t the reward for this game incredible power and fortune?” her wrath asked.

“Well, yes,” the other one said, closing her eyes. “That would be amazing. But, the safe path is getting into a wealthy career. They both look good, but the high risk…”

“If I take the safe path, I’m going to be bored until college,” Chou said.

“I hope that this school will prove challenging once things get going,” the other one said, then looked to her again. “Well, whatever, I don’t want to have concern over money constantly hanging over me. Do you agree with that? After all, you are me, and I am a part of you.”

“I don’t want everything to end up about money,” Chou said. “But I do feel that way, you’re right.”

This one grinned at that. “Good, thanks. I guess it couldn’t hurt to try out the Game and keep on track with schooling into wealth. Always good to have options. Anyhow, I feel like somebody’s over at the cafeteria now, so go talk with them too.” She vanished into an orb of light, which took off down the hall towards the stairs.

On the way there, a bat flew right at her face and scratched her. “Shoot that one, then hit it with the knife while it’s down,” her wrath said.

Once she got over the surprise, Chou noted that the bat had glowing yellow eyes too. “If you say so,” Chou said, pointing the gun and pulling the trigger. The resulting bang startled her; wasn’t this a plastic toy? But she’d missed that shot. Using a pair of ridges to aim, she fired again and hit the bat. The knife cut through Shadow like it had a real edge too, destroying it.

“Perceptions rule this place,” her wrath explained. “As long as your weapons look real, they do real damage to the Shadows.”

“But I can tell these aren’t real,” Chou said, trying to shoot the gun into the wall. It clicked and fired nothing.

“Right, because you have a more complete reasoning ability. The Shadows, the cognitions, even me, we’re fragments of psyche, not whole. So you could shoot me too, but you’d regret doing that.”

“That would be dumb,” she said, glancing around for any other hostile Shadows. The way seemed clear, so they moved on.

They found her next self in the doorway of the cafeteria, arms crossed over her chest and eyes glowering into the room. “You ever wonder how we have such absurd luck?” she said, not looking at them. “They say hard work, talent, and even good luck will take you places, but none of that has worked for us yet. These guys, they’ve gotten here in normal ways with work, talent, money, and even luck. But we had to get here through luck so bad that it wrapped around into good… or is it good? Nearly all of them dismissed us without hesitation.”

“Not all of them,” Chou said, although she felt annoyed at a reminder of those thoughts.

“What about the Game?” her wrath asked impatiently.

The other self finally looked at them, still with a bitter look on her face. “Of course we should join that. We can make others know how rotten they are and get back at that jerk. Maybe we could even steal the power and wealth he has. After all, we could certainly put that to better use than taking advantage of a woman and ruining the life of another out of something that was his own damn fault. This Game is strange, but how many other people get that kind of power? It’d finally be an advantage that we could make use of.”

“Your words as as bitter as your attitude,” Chou said, feeling uncomfortable at seeing it.

“But it is how you feel, because you are me and I am a part of you.”

“Right, but I don’t need to show that bitterness to others,” she said.

The other self shrugged. “That’s fine, I’ll cooperate as long as you acknowledge I’m there in you.” She gestured down the hall. “I heard someone else in the courtyard, but I don’t like how she’s changed recently. We used to get along, us and her there. Good luck, I’m glad I won’t be there to listen to her.” She then vanished off to the stairs like the previous self.

“Well everything’s changed drastically this year,” Chou said, heading onward.

“The Shadows could be anxious over there if it’s who I think it is,” her wrath said, following alongside her.

Just as she said, they had to fight five more Shadows out in the courtyard. In that, her wrath showed off the black spark she’d used earlier, a spell called Eiga that was really effective against the lip Shadows. That cleared out the area, allowing them to find the next fragment of her unconscious self. She was curled up with her head on her knees and her arms around her legs. “Hey, you hurt?” Chou asked.

“Of course I am,” she said in a broken voice. She didn’t even lift her head.

Her wrath sighed. “Can’t you get over this soon? You’re putting a damper on me too.”

“You’re all agitated for the same reasons,” she said, lifting her head some. Her damp cheeks made it clear that she’d been crying. “Dammit, this isn’t right. We did the right thing, so why are we suffering for it? What did we do wrong? I thought we could handle anything, prove your worth even to your parents once we got the chance. We’re better than everyone seems to think; we could have earned our way in here if we’d been given a fair chance. But everything’s screwed up more than before, Mom and Dad won’t even talk to me, and neither will anybody else. How am I supposed to just get over this?”

Her wrath shook her head. “I don’t want us to be a sobbing wreck, though. That’s weak and I don’t want to be weak.”

“I don’t either, but what are we supposed to do when everything gets decided for us?” the other self said. “We’d get utterly crushed if we acted out, especially since the thing we were accused of was being violent.”

“Hey, let’s not fight ourselves,” Chou said, rubbing her forehead. “It feels awful.”

“Everything feels awful these days, it’s sickening,” the other self said, putting her head on her knees again. Her wrath looked annoyed, but closed her eyes and seemed to accept it.

Being here, she could recall her time imprisoned, feeling lost, lonely, and betrayed. Chou knew that she still felt that way even now that she had some freedom back. “Hey, I know you’re a part of me, and I’m fine with that,” she said, causing the other one to look back up. “I mean, it all sucks and I have reasons to feel like this. But I have to keep going if I want to get anywhere. Plus, this mental landscape place will open up new possibilities. I want to try this, see what happens.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you can do something with this,” she said. “I’m scared too; I know you are. I guess it’s time to get back on our feet, though. Sorry, we could feel like this a while longer. But when I get back to myself, when you have the guts, we should be fine.” She then vanished to head back to the others.

Now where to? That one hadn’t told her. Then again, it was herself she was looking for. Chou headed inside and up the stairs to reach the library. It was a place she wanted to be sure about. The Shadows inside were roaming about in more of a hurry, as if they were looking for something. Most of the time, the Shadows didn’t attack unless bumped into.

It didn’t help that the cognitive students kept gossiping. And then a scream disrupted them as they reached the third floor. “What was that?” Chou asked, glancing back down the stairs where the scream had come from.

Her wrath nudged her onward. “It wasn’t from our cognition. Otherwise, you’d recognize it. The Shadows should keep the divide strong.”

“Interference from distorted cognition is growing,” the navigator said. “Proceed with caution.”

“Unless it’s that app’s fault that the divide is weak,” her wrath said.

“Then we should finish this as soon as we can,” Chou said.

“Right, the others had better agree.”

As she thought, there was another part of her unconscious self in the library, reading a book at the table. Chou went over to the table and rapped her knuckles on it. “Hey, we can’t stick around.”

“Hmm?” Her other self looked up from her book, then shrugged. “So leave. This time would be better spent reading, don’t you think? I mean, I’m sure you heard that scream. What good would come of messing with that? On the other hand, we’ve got more books here to read, and books at Leblanc, and I’m sure a big city like this is going to have lots of bookstores tucked away somewhere. I just wanna consume all these books, know a lot more, and stay out of troublesome business. Last year, you nearly landed us in trouble several times by poking your nose into other people’s business, and got us in really bad trouble doing the same this year.”

“Those people were in trouble,” Chou said, feeling embarrassed and angry. Sure, there was that voice that agreed that she knew better than to interfere. “I don’t want to ignore others who are hurting.”

“Hmph, you’re too soft-hearted,” her other self said, looking at the book again.

Her wrath slammed the book down. “It’s better than being callous-hearted! We’re going to get revenge, which means we need to be doing more than just reading.”

The other self sighed and shifted her glasses. “But reading is safe. I won’t get hurt this way and neither will anyone else. It’s through reading that I can prove myself to others, by the knowledge I gain learning from others before me. What’s seeking revenge going to do for us anyhow? You’ve read about it: vengeance can be a path to ruin as well. It can lead to injustice and cruelty.”

“We’ve already been hit by injustice and cruelty,” Chou said. “And that girl mentioned that we’re joining this game late. We’re going to have to use our skills and knowledge to gain an edge over people who’ve had power for longer. So I might need to focus my reading for a while on psychology and how a place like this works.”

“You think we can find books like that?” she asked, finally interested.

“I hope so,” she said. “I do think like you sometimes, but it’s ultimately selfish. My goal right now is selfish too, but I’ll see how I can help others along the way. I hope that’s possible.”

The other self sighed, but put the book down. “Still soft-hearted. But such empathy is often the trait of a hero rather than a villain. This does present an unparalleled ability to learn about others, though.” She chuckled. “A view of a mental landscape ought to give good insight into other people, access to knowledge we wouldn’t get otherwise. That sounds fun. All right, I’ll work with you.” She then gestured to the door. “The other two you’ve yet to find are on the second floor of this place. Be careful, though. One of them is easily distracted and the other is going to be much harder to convince. You’ll need us to be united.” She then turned into a spirit orb and vanished through the floor.

When she got downstairs, the area rippled. Her wrath gripped her arm as the halls shifted to something like a prison. A blink later and it was a stone hallway lit with torches and lined with a luxurious red carpet. Another shift made it more like a school, but with ‘HATE’ scribbled all over the walls and angry red slashes across the floor. “What’s going on?” Chou asked.

“There are as many cognitions of a place as people who frequent it,” her wrath explained as the school turned into a place of mirrors and pride. “We must be getting interference from particularly strong or shared cognitions. Hmph, whoever made that app didn’t put much security on it. Complain to them when you can.”

“But who made it?”

“You should meet them before long.” After a strong ripple, the hall settled back down to her cognition. “We’re okay for now, but we’d better get this done before the stability of this place breaks down fully. This is just your first day here, so your cognition of this place is poor.”

Now that it was safe, she spotted another fragment of her unconscious self in the hallway. She was near where Chou had met Shiho, Ann, and Ryuji earlier. Because of that meeting, three cognitions of them were hanging out together and chatting. The area around them was warmer; it had to be because their brief chat had been a positive thing rather than all the negativity that had surrounded her elsewhere in school. Before long, the other self noticed them and came over. “Hey! Isn’t this great?”

“What is?” Chou asked.

She laughed and pointed over at the three. “You found some real cuties who seem willing to be friends with you already. That Ann is gorgeous and exotic, and just think about what she’d be like with less clothes on. Shiho is rocking that feminine athlete look and I’m sure she could rock you in more ways than that. Ryuji’s pretty fine himself, got a dangerous delinquent flair that’s real manly. We’ve got some good targets now.”

For a moment, Chou wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Uh, well I can’t argue that…”

That pleased her other self. “Yeah! So let’s see about hooking up with one of them, or maybe all three. You have got to take advantage of our youth and have a lot of fun. Remember the fun we had with those guys last year when they were all crushing on you? But then you never answered their crushes, never tried to get with them. You keep me under restraint way too much.”

“Well I can’t just follow every whim we have,” Chou said, rubbing her head. “Or take advantage of other people’s crushes; that’s a sure way to end up hurting them. I’ve heard and read all kinds of stories like that.”

“Ugh, but you’ll never get anywhere keeping cautious like that,” the other self said, shaking her head.

“What about the Game we’ve joined?” her wrath asked, seeming annoyed.

The other self shrugged. “Meh, what do I care about a game like that? It’s not going to get us a sweetie to have fun with. But look, since I don’t care, I’ll agree to it on one term: you should try dating someone this year. Boy, girl, whoever. I’d be happier if you went for more than just one and more than just dating, of course. But start simple if you have to, just go for it. Then I won’t care what else you’re up to, vengeance or whatever.”

“All right, I’ll try,” Chou agreed. Dating someone was something she wanted, after all.

Grinning, the other self bowed. “Thanks, this’ll be great! Don’t forget now.” She then vanished and turned down the corner towards the homeroom class.

Chou turned to follow her and immediately spotted the other fragment of her unconscious self there, presumably the last she needed to speak with. The other self looked at her, then shook her head and looked aside. “What good is dating going to do you?”

“Don’t ask me,” her wrath said, equally annoyed with this one.

“It’s something I want, just something I can’t get carried away with,” Chou said.

“It’ll be too much trouble,” the other self said. “I mean, if you get in a relationship, you’d have to care about them and their feelings. Even a one time thing could lead to complications and trouble. But worse than that, this Game? It’s going to be way too much work for what it’s worth. Even this school is going to be too much work to make interesting. We might as well do just enough to go unnoticed.”

“That’s wrong!” her wrath snapped. “We shouldn’t be in this situation, but we’ve got a chance to get out of it. We need to tear that man down.”

The other self snorted and looked to them skeptically. “Oh yeah? It ain’t going to work.”

“You can’t know that,” Chou said.

“I do know that,” she said. “We of your unconscious self, we know things you don’t about this.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It just so happens that I know more than any of the rest. And from what I know, don’t bother. Don’t awaken the power of Persona and you’ll be allowed to just drop out of the game. Then we could let fate take care of us. If you awaken the power of Persona, you’ll be forced to fight in the Metaverse against other players who do not hesitate to kill rivals. You’ll be challenged in dreams and for what? Distorted ones will suffer from guilt, victims will be freed from their torments, and you will get very little in the way of help or reward. You’ll be told to fight ruin, but ruin is what awaits you by playing in the Game. And your chances at victory will be even slimmer this time because you will be told to work alone.”

“What do you mean by this time?” her wrath asked. “That’s all a load of shit in my opinion, but why ‘this time’?”

The other self looked aside. “You don’t need to know that. But if you did, you’d all agree with me: we’re better off ignoring all this. The world will not change. The webs of deceit will not fall.”

“Why do you know all this?” Chou asked. “Who are you anyhow?”

“I am your apathy,” the other self said. “You should trust my words. You have before. After all, there’s always someone better out there, someone smarter, someone luckier, someone stronger. We’re not anybody special. When you don’t listen to me, we keep finding misfortune. You’re reaching for things out of your grasp, tormented by that which you can see but cannot touch. As for how I know…” the air around them darkened, making her apathy’s eyes shine brighter, “…apathy. I’m also your greatest obstacle, within and without. I’ve found power from one who resonates with me. If you want proof of my claims, here. Take a look within the sinful mind that is distorting the cognitions of everyone around them, the reason why this place is unstable.”

The air around them shattered this time instead of rippling, leaving Chou in a strange dark hall with screams and cries all around her.


	3. Reverse Fool

4/11

It was a grim black hall with a stench of sweat; hefty iron bars were on her left, letting shafts of pale light into the hall. It wasn’t like the holding cell, since that had been a cleaner place. From the grime and stench between the hefty stones, the walls had to be hiding mold. It offended her senses. The thumps and cries made it seem even more like a dungeon. What kind of messed up view made a school seem like this?

The question became stronger when she turned to the bars and saw what was outside the hall. Or rather, inside a giant cell. A volleyball court was set up there with thuggish guards beating on teenage boys. The boys in sports uniforms clung to the net, doing their best not to cry out. One of them couldn’t and got kicked to the ground.

“Don’t be such a wimp if you want to stay!” the guard said, kicking him again. “If you want to share in the king’s glories, you must go through the hell that is training. And believe me, you wimps have only just begun!”

Another guard barked out, “Even if you chumps are lucky enough to share in the king’s glories, don’t ever think such glories belong to you! You will never be a king in the sports world, never! You just don’t have the touch.”

“This can’t be training,” Chou said in quiet horror. Maybe it was symbolic? Rumors said that the training was tough. Still, who was the king here? It had to be someone associated with the volleyball team.

“Training is always hell,” someone said. Chou glanced around, noticing that her wrath was gone. Instead, there was a ghostly young man with curly brown hair and a similar red and white uniform. “A beating is the only way to get a boy’s mind on the right track, the only way they’ll realize their mistakes. If I had to go through this, they have to go through this too.” He then vanished.

Chou didn’t agree with that; it was too sadistic. She checked her phone and saw that the app now listed her location as ‘Suguru Kamoshida’s Castle’. There wasn’t an option to go back. Instead, it gave her instructions to explore the area with caution. This was no longer her cognition, so any Shadows like the guards beating the boys would most likely attack her.

In the next cell, she saw more boys on this team running on a giant treadmill. A jug dripping with water was hanging over a pit ahead of them. A giant spiked roller waited at the end to pulverize any who slipped. Surely, this had to be symbolic. One of the boys called out, “C-coach, please, s-some water, please…”

“Five more minutes of running for you,” the guard Shadow called out over a bullhorn.

The ghostly young man appeared again. “If you want to be a champion, you have no time to be taking breaks in the middle of training. You have to push your body to its limit, even if it collapses on you. You’ll be stronger after that. Besides, you don’t want to be the one complaining. This is a team sport, united for victory. Leave your personal opinions and feelings behind so the true star can shine.” And he vanished again.

No, that was bullshit. Chou could understand how people would be reluctant to complain. Society looked down on those who didn’t cooperate. Still, one should be a decent person and respect others. If this was how the coach was treating his players, even symbolically, it wasn’t right. It didn’t matter if he experienced this too. That still didn’t make this right.

In the next cell, she saw another player who was dangling upside-down from a rope while a cannon kept firing volleyballs at his face. Chou winced on seeing that. She checked the app to try out an examine function. Unfortunately, it only told her that this was a cognitive being. Another figment. There was nothing to do for these beings. But, perhaps something could be done for their real-world counterparts?

“If you make mistakes, you should be smacked straight away so you don’t make it worse,” the ghostly young man said, appearing next to the bars. “And one of the worst mistakes you could make is getting distracted by a girl who belongs to me. You peasants should be glad that I’m not the sort who will put my hand down your pants while pleasuring myself. You’re boys and it wouldn’t be any fun for either of us. Or would it, you horny little bastards?” He then vanished again.

“You’re the bastard,” Chou muttered.

She didn’t think she was being loud, but a shrill alarm pierced the air. “A student is out of bounds!” a furious voice said. “Capture them!”

Stepping away from the bars, Chou glanced around the hall. There didn’t seem to be any Shadows here. She backed up to the wall, then hurried over as quietly as she could to the only exit to this hall. It led up and around to another level of this dungeon. Here, a dark moat of water split up rows of barred cells. Cages hung by hefty chains swayed over the rushing moat. Another boy was inside one, passed out with his arm in a cast and a steel helmet encasing his head.

Heavy footsteps came from further down the hall. Chou backed down the stairs quietly to keep from being noticed. She should get back to the lower hall. However, the guards were coming quick. Not sure what else to do, she crouched on the stairs and hoped that was enough. Shadows wearing heavy armor and carrying large spiked maces rushed by in their search. One paused at the stairs and glanced down. Chou’s heart pounded as she grabbed her gun. Could she fight here? It felt awkward.

The Shadow looked to one side, then the other. Then back over Chou’s head. After lingering for a few seconds, the guard turned and hurried on to catch up with the others. Chou let go of her breath, glad she could avoid that. Although, how? Her school uniform was dark, but she should have been obvious there.

After waiting a bit, Chou came back out and looked around some more. Maybe she could escape if she got out of the castle? But then how did she get back to the real world? At any rate, she needed to find somewhere safe and quiet to check the app’s tutorials to figure that out. Getting outside the castle seemed like the best shot at that.

There were some stairs up at the end of the hall. Unfortunately, she was on the wrong side of the moat to reach them. There was a raised bridge nearby with a strange bust of a grinning king by it. Chou started to examine it when she heard a different voice from nearby. “Hey, who’s out there? You don’t belong to this place.”

Didn’t belong? Who was that? Chou got her phone and examined the area in the direction of the voice. The app noted that another being foreign to this mind was nearby. Strange, what were they doing here?

The person then hissed, “Come on, come over here. I won’t bite unless you threaten me.”

She seemed to be in one of the locked cells. Chou went over and found a strange cat person to be inside. Standing on two legs with a yellow bandanna tied around her neck, the cat was mostly black with some white markings. Like a bandit with white shoes and gloves, she thought. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.

“I’d like to know the same about you,” the cat said, twitching her whiskers. “It’s dangerous around here without the right protection, you know. Even I, a great phantom thief, got caught by the aggressive guards around here. You don’t even have a Persona.”

“I was trying to get one,” she explained. “But apparently the distortion of this cognition was powerful enough to overtake mine. Or something like that, I’m still figuring this out I’m…”

“Shh,” the cat said, putting a paw to her mouth. “You should be careful saying your real name in the Metaverse, especially in a cognition other than yours. The ruler of this Palace might put your name into their thoughts and act against you in the real world.”

“That would be bad,” Chou said. If she got in trouble this early into her probation and school year, it would be the end of both.

The cat then pointed up. “Anyhow, could you take care of that lock and free me? I don’t mind helping you get out when I’m free.”

“Do you know where the key is?” she asked, glancing up. The lock was placed at a strange height, in Chou’s reach but not the cat’s unless she jumped high.

“You know how to pick locks?” the cat asked.

“Who’s talking down here?!” a voice bellowed from out of sight. More heavy footsteps converged from both sides.

The cat’s eyes went wider. “Crap, anywhere you could hide? Blend in with the shadows, will yourself to keep quiet and unseen.”

There was a barrel nearby. Nodding, Chou crouched down against the wall, pulling her knees close to her chest. Will herself to be quiet and unseen… was that enough? After a moment, the darker area around the barrel somehow grew around her. She even saw herself as a shadowed person. It wasn’t like the monster Shadows who stormed about searching for her. What little of themselves showed was an undefined darkness and glowing yellow eyes.

One of the knight guards tugged on the bust’s jaw to lower the nearby bridge for other guards to cross. Another guard pounded on the cat’s cell. “Hey, who were you talking to?”

“Just myself,” the cat said defiantly. “Who else would I be talking to? That ugly statue over there?”

The guard pounded the bars again. “Don’t speak so disrespectfully of the king! He’ll have you executed if he was around to hear you!”

“Well excuse me,” the cat retorted, unapologetic. Once a minute had passed after the guards were gone, the cat whispered loudly, “Hey newbie, you still here? It should be alright now.”

When she came out, the shadows receded around her. “I have no idea how that worked, but it did.”

The cat seemed relieved to see her safe. “You can think of this like a dream world. If you have the will, you can do more than you’re normally capable of. You did well, actually; I could hardly sense you out there. Now here, I’ll talk you through picking the lock, then we’ll figure out how to get you out of here.” She offered what seemed like a plain hairpin.

Nodding, Chou took the pin. “I’ve not done this, but I’ll give it a try.”

“Those locks are simple, good for learning on,” the cat said. “There’s some slots in there that respond to the turn of a key. Figure out which of them depress, then shape the pin to press those parts all at once. I hope you can visualize stuff like that.”

She nodded again, not wanting to talk too much. While fiddling with the pin inside the keyhole, she could feel what the cat was talking about. Some parts could be pressed while others couldn’t. From there, it was memorizing the general shape of the matching key, then making the pin into that. It took some pressure to reshape the pin, but when she turned it in the lock, it opened right up.

The cat smiled at her. “Nice one, doing that on your first try. You might have some talent as a phantom thief too.”

“What do you do as a phantom thief?” Chou asked. It sounded cool, but she didn’t need to dive right into trouble.

“For me, I’m looking for Treasures in the Metaverse,” the cat said, making a confidant pose. “I shall steal them stylishly, without getting caught. Well, that’s the plan and plans don’t always work. Security is pretty tough here. Speaking of, let’s head back to where you stumbled in here. There should be a way for you to get back.”

“It was deeper in the dungeon,” she said, pointing in the direction she’d come.

“Weird, but okay, let’s go.”

Another patrol came by, still in search of her. Thankfully, they got to the stairs down and were able to give them the slip that way. The players were still being tormented there; the cat shifted her ears and did not seem comfortable with that either. They went to the end of the hall where the air rippled again. Briefly, the comparatively normal school halls of her cognition returned. But the castle overcame that.

Speaking quietly, the cat said, “Yeah, it’s weak here so you should be able to get back. We have a moment if we keep quiet. So what went wrong with summoning your Persona? And how’d you get into the Metaverse in the first place? Not just anybody can come in here, you see.”

Chou pulled out her phone and showed the cat the Metaverse app. “I got in this way. It said it was giving me a tutorial and asked me to get my unconscious self to cooperate with me. Actually, this app is supposed to be a tool in this game I’m playing as the Trickster.”

The cat’s whiskers and ears twitched at that. “Trickster? Trickster…” she seemed focused on some thought; her tail even went still.

“What about it?” Chou asked after a moment.

“Oh!” She shook her head. “Sorry about that. Actually, something happened to me in the Metaverse. Maybe I’ve been in here too long, but my memory is all foggy. That’s also why I looked like a cat, I think. I’m definitely a human though.”

“But I like cats,” she said, acting disappointed.

“Well I am cute like this, don’t you think?” After swaying cutely, she chuckled. “When you called yourself the Trickster, that felt very important to me. I know I was searching for something. I thought it was Treasure, but maybe you too. Anyhow, your Persona?”

After checking for guards, Chou tried to explain things quickly. “My unconscious self was split on this game, so I had to talk with things like my wrath, my lust, and such. But it was my apathy who was completely against joining the game. She sent me here, I guess to scare me off.”

“I hope this helps to convince her because you’ll need a Persona to get around a Palace like this,” the cat said. “But you know, I think you have promise. You’re staying relatively calm and picking up on things quick. Tell you what: you get control of a Persona and we’ll make a deal, okay? You help me out in getting my memories back and I’ll teach you how to be a phantom thief. A Trickster is meant to change fates, maybe even trick reality itself. Wouldn’t the skills of a phantom thief really suit someone called to be a Trickster?”

Stealing treasures stylishly, without getting caught. Chou wasn’t sure what the game was about aside from a means at getting back at the man who’d ruined her, or what a phantom thief was really supposed to be. But it all sounded like a fun crazy adventure, nothing like an ordinary life. It could even challenge her. She also felt inclined to help a cat even if she wasn’t really a cat. That could go unmentioned.

“That could work,” Chou said, checking the Metaverse app. “Then, I suppose when I can return, I’ll use this app to get to this Kamoshida person’s cognition. We’ll talk about it more when we can make the deal.”

“Good,” the cat said. “If that app got you here, isn’t there a return home function?”

“Hmm…” she shifted pages around, finding an error message. “Looks like it was supposed to activate once I finished the tutorial. And since I haven’t, it won’t let me get out.”

“That seems like a really bad fault. Who made that app?” The cat dug around in her belt pouch for a moment.

Chou shook her head. “I have no idea. It was some big deep voice that I heard when I was alone and I haven’t heard from them since.”

Although the pouch looked small, the cat brought out three toys, the sort that one tugged on the two sticks to tear apart the paper pouch in the middle for a prize. “Try this then; it’s a Goho-M, a tool that should get you back to reality from a place like this. And have some extra too, in case this keeps being a problem.”

“Sure, thanks,” she said, taking the Goho-M sticks. “Good luck.”

“You too.”

Chou snapped the Goho-M open, causing strong ripples around them. It brought her into an unfamiliar place, full of people running around and shouting. “Get moving! You can’t win if you stand around like a damn idiot!”

The gymnasium? That had to be where this was, with all the equipment for various sports around. The volleyball team was still at practice, passing balls back and forth. As she watched to see if she was noticed, one of the volleyballs went astray. The coach grabbed the ball, tossed it up, then slammed it back into the student who’d missed the shot before berating him. The student paled, frozen to the spot he’d fallen as the coach approached him.

Thankfully, the players were too focused on their drills and the coach was watching them. The door wasn’t too far; Chou moved quietly over to get out. There were few students hanging around the halls, so she was able to get out without incident. However, she felt dizzy by the time she got outside. Chou decided to head back home to take things easy the rest of the day.

She had a headache by the time she got back to Leblanc, but was able to spend a few hours reading before going to sleep.

* * *

‘School sucked, for the usual reasons and more. My social circle has always been fluid so I figured I’d just do my usual thing and get along. But no, some jerk already leaked my probation status and the whole school was talking about it. The other students seem to be afraid of me, once they figure out it is me because there’s still confusion over if the rumor is about a girl or boy. It’s weird. I get why my appearance has people confused sometimes, but when they just know my name? Maybe they only knew my family name; Chou is an unusual name but distinctly that of a girl. There were some students who were nice to me because they think it’s all false rumors, so that’s good. I can have a few potential friends.

‘Speaking of rumors, there’s some pretty weird ones going on about the volleyball team. Not sure what I think about that.

‘And I know you’ll be reading this Sojiro, so know that your curry was the best thing about this day.’

* * *

4/12

Morning classes on her second day were dull. Chou ended up thinking over her supposed tutorial challenge while half-listening in. What would convince herself to keep going? Or, was it worth participating? She had put a lot of effort into some goals only to fail utterly at them. Like that time she’d pushed herself to learn English and advanced math in order to impress the scouts of a highly regarded middle school? They’d passed her over and she had to accept a regular middle school. Not only that, but math had been a dull class ever since. And that ordeal got repeated when she tried out for better high schools. Maybe she should pick up a new geometry book to study for entrance exams next year? That would be safer than mucking about in dreams or whatever the Metaverse was.

At lunch break, Ann invited her to lunch out in the courtyard with her, Shiho, and Ryuji. Things felt awkward at first, mostly with the girls. It didn’t seem to be about her being someone they didn’t know well, though. For one thing, Shiho apologized about it in a moment of quiet. “Sorry, there’s just something on my mind,” she said in a meek voice.

“Is something wrong?” Chou asked, although she was almost certain that something was wrong involving Ann and Shiho. They both looked unhappy and kept shifting to a defensive posture. Perhaps someone was bullying them. If either of them were dating, she’d suspect the boyfriend. She didn’t know anything for certain, but she’d observed many different people and developed an ability to read others.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” she said, forcing a smile. Shiho was likely a naturally kind and thoughtful person, but something or someone had gutted her self-confidence.

“You sure about that?” Ryuji asked. “You two aren’t normally this gloomy. Is it about that jerkface Kamoshida?”

The one with the castle distortion? Ann’s eyes went wide and her body stiffened; Shiho looked down and shivered slightly. Chou recalled the ghostly image from the castle, scolding others for looking at girls who belonged to him. What was going on here?

“Well he is a jerk,” Ann said, in a quieter voice than normal. Her eyes shifted nervously in case someone else was listening in.

“He’s just,” Shiho started to add, struggling to find fair words for it, “very intense. It’s nothing, you get used to it.”

Ryuji looked furious but bit his lip on it. “Hmph, I never did and I ended up with a busted leg. You should be careful around him.”

While Chou really wanted to know what was going on, the girls looked even gloomier and would likely clam up since they didn’t know her well. This needed to be treaded carefully even if something should be done. “Am I going to have to be careful in gym class tomorrow?” she asked. “I’m more of a bookish dweeb than an athlete.”

It worked enough to get the other girls to laugh a little. “Probably,” Ann said. “He will yell across the room at times and annoy the other coach.”

Ryuji glanced at Chou. “You sure of being bookish? I mean, you’ve got the glasses, but you seem fit.”

Nodding, Chou pulled out the philosophy book. “I am, been studying this and hoping to find a store with books on college mathematics, among other subjects.”

“Wow, maybe you could help us with math,” Shiho said, smiling a little more naturally now.

Ann brightened at that (though it may have been for the distraction). “Oh yeah, could you? I find it hard to follow when the teacher here explains things.”

“I’ll try, but I find it easy,” Chou said. “Is there a bookstore in this area?”

“I don’t know, but there’s definitely one in Shibuya,” Ann said. “Hey, I have this afternoon free, so want me to show you around there?”

“Sure, that’d be great,” she said.

“That could be fun,” Shiho said. “The girls’ team already did practice this morning, so I should be able to come. How about you, want to come too?”

“I dunno about that,” Ryuji said. “I mean, shopping with girls? I’ll probably end up carrying her bags.” He gestured to Ann.

“Hey, I’m not always like that,” Ann said, although she didn’t seem too serious with the complaining. These three were definitely good friends with each other.

“Right, just when there’s a big sale,” Shiho said, then chuckled at teasing her.

“Well, sometimes then,” Ann admitted with a smile.

It was good that they ended lunch on a cheerful note. But after that, Chou kept noticing other oddities. There was a guy with a broken arm that reminded her of the one passed out in the cage. He was talking quietly with a guy who had bandages wrapped over an eye. While she was heading back to class and couldn’t overhear them long, she did hear Kamoshida’s name in their conversation. There was also a boy in her own class who had a nasty set of bruises on his face. It reminded Chou of a neighbor who had an abusive loudmouth of a husband. Those bruises looked similar.

After classes were over, Chou thought briefly of just heading over to the train station with Ann. But her new friend was taking a bit longer to write something in her notebook. Chou gathered her things, then got up to catch the guy with bruises before he left. “Hey.”

“Huh?” He looked up from his desk, noticed who she was, then paled like a frightened animal. “Uh…”

“You okay?” Chou asked, shifting her posture to seem nonthreatening.

It left the boy more confused than assured, again rather like that woman. “Oh, uh, ye-yeah, it’s nothing to worry about,” he said, touching his face near the bruises as he got up. “Umm… I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Chou asked.

He looked confused still. “Uh, never mind then. Sorry, I have to go.” He picked up his bag and hurried off.

From Ann, she learned that the bruised boy in their class was Yuuki Mishima, another member of the volleyball team. Ann was clearly reluctant to talk about the volleyball coach, so Chou didn’t push it then. Whatever was going on wasn’t good. Kamoshida was the volleyball team’s coach and the owner of that powerful distorted cognition that passed off abuse as normal, like it was necessary to win. Was there something she could do in the Metaverse to help the other students? Perhaps that cat might know how.

But was it worth it to get involved? The Metaverse was strange and whoever was running that Game had thrown her right into a dangerous situation. It had been that way even when she first arrived in Yongen-Jaya, shifting her over when she didn’t know the area and risked running into things beyond human comprehension. If she kept at it, she might stumble onto one of those things. Besides that, what would happen if she could do something about Kamoshida? It wouldn’t help her situation any.

It would help those students. One should help others whenever one could; it was something she’d learned from many books that she enjoyed. If you wanted the world to be better, you ought to make it better even if it was just little bit by little bit. She supposedly had the power to make others feel the weight of their sins now and it sounded like this coach would be a good test of what such power could do.

It might be a lot of effort for little reward, though… rewards shouldn’t be considered when helping others, especially in circumstances where the others couldn’t do much to help themselves. But she’d be putting herself at risk in a place most people wouldn’t believe existed, which actually sounded incredible, like a fun challenge. Learning to be a phantom thief also sounded like a wonderful opportunity she’d never get again… but did she really want to risk what freedom she had on probation?

At any rate, she’d already made plans to explore around Shibuya with Ann and Shiho. The bookstore was one of many stores on Central Street, along with a crepe store that Ann said was really good and a shoe store that Shiho recommended. There was also an underground mall with a lot of smaller stores in the train station. From the looks of it, she could find most things she would need around here. There was also a diner, a burger shop, and other places that would be good if she didn’t feel like cooking.

Eventually, Ann got a call and said she had to go back home. The look on her face suggested that it was a call she didn’t want, but she didn’t explain. Shiho decided to head home too. Since she didn’t need to go back right away, Chou looked over a stand with part-time jobs. Sojiro was buying food for her and let her use the cafe’s cleaning supplies, but Chou wanted to be able to pay for her own things. Like her own computer, hopefully.

She checked the areas in case there might be something in Yongen-Jaya. There wasn’t, but there were many options for Shibuya. A convenience store clerk… maybe, if nothing else looked interesting. A beef bowl shop… it required some skill apparently, but it seemed to pay nicely. But it was evenings only. A florist shop… that could be interesting. There was a flower language that she’d seen referenced in older books that she’d thought about learning. Having a florist job would be a good excuse to learn it.

The shop owner was willing to let her work for a couple of hours to see how she would do. Her shop was around a corner in the underground mall, a small nook full of many flowers. “I’m glad you could come in right away,” she said, offering her a work apron. “I have a large order of bouquets to make, so you can handle any sales. Can you identify these flowers?”

Glancing over, she nodded. “Most of them.”

“Good, but if you’re not sure, ask me. If you want to stick around, I recommend reading the Flowerpedia to learn more about them.” She gave Chou a quick rundown of how to handle sales, much like any other shop. When they didn’t have customers, the owner gave her instructions on how to make bouquets in case she needed to take care of that too.

That was one thing taken care of, but it still didn’t help her make up her mind on this Metaverse business.

* * *

‘I have some new friends now, which is good. We talked about maybe doing some math tutoring sessions, which could be reason to actually pay attention in class (Note: I am pretty good at math, so that’s an easy class to pass with little effort). Shiho and Ann showed me around Shibuya after school, so I know where some good stores are now. But I don’t know if it’d be worth it making friends with those besides them and Ryuji. Nobody else at school will even look at me. Today’s been a struggle of if I care or not, though it’s clear that school would be awful if it wasn’t for those three.

‘I did get a part-time job at a flower shop in Shibuya. That should be fun; the owner seems to be a sweet passionate lady. Also, note to self: get a pic of the plant to see if she can identify it and tell me how to take better care of it. It’s kinda wimpy, but it’s still surviving. How long has it been up here?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On things I found interesting that the game was only teasing about... I loved the idea from the early cutscene of the Metaverse app freezing time; the book Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett did that in a fun way, in my recollection. But I can see why that idea was only used for that cutscene. The events of Joker's first day of school could not work like they did if going into the Metaverse froze time, plus it'd be harder for the game to make going into the Metaverse take up a time block. But since I don't have to care about the restraints of game mechanics, I can use the time freeze aspect here. It has some problems of its own for Chou, though.
> 
> I have Morgana as a girl too because... well, personal preference, same reason I constantly restart the beginning of Pokemon games to make sure my starter/partner is a girl like my PC is.
> 
> Also, if you'd like me to add in notes about Tarot symbolism in chapters where I use cards for titles, just let me know.


	4. The Fool

4/13

The social studies teacher started off his class with a rant about how teenagers like them lacked civility. He was also the guy who glared at her in the faculty office. Annoyed by how he wasn’t teaching anything, Chou looked out the windows in thought. She wanted to see what she could do; she wanted to help the other students. But she still had to convince her apathy in order to do so. She should try again today after school.

Then her half-listening picked up on something interesting. “According to Socrates, what is the root of sin? It’s not what they say today, but it is a problem that you should be well aware of. What is it?”

There was nervous silence from the rest of the class. But one of them had to know it, right? They were elite students who earned their way into this school. Chou recalled the passage immediately from the book in her bag.

“Really, no answer?” the teacher said in disgust. “If none of you can, then you get an extra part to your assignment today. Or is it too much to expect out of spoiled kids like you? Again, what is the root of sin according to Socrates?”

He was doing this on purpose. Perhaps this teacher thought that none of them knew it. After another moment, Chou sat up and raised her hand to answer. Some of the students near her noticed and stared.

The teacher stared at her too. “All right, Amamiya, can you answer this question?”

Nodding confidently, she answered, “Socrates said that ignorance is the root of evil.”

“That’s right,” the teacher said, not really impressed. But the other students were, whispering to each other in surprise. “But it seems the rest of you need to read more good literature, both in and out of our culture.”

She listened long enough to get their actual assignment, then went back to thinking while looking out the window.

In the afternoon, Chou prepared herself mentally while going to gym class. Normally gym would be a break to run, stretch, or whatever else after sitting most of the day. Nothing good, nothing bad, yet another time she could let her mind wander. But if the teacher of this period was Kamoshida, she might need to be more alert than usual.

There was a split in the genders, thankfully. The boys’ coach was Kamoshida while the girls’ coach was involved with the basketball team. Finally getting to see the famed coach herself, Chou quickly noticed that he indeed had a domineering personality. Kamoshida was tall and muscular, with curly hair that still seemed thick. There were hints of his age in his face (probably somewhere in his thirties) but he could compete athletically no sweat. His voice lent itself to bellowing and filling up the gym, overpowering even their coach when the girls were across the way. All the boys went meek in front of him.

Chou got through class by doing exactly as told through the exercises: not too good, not bad, just enough to get by. Both coaches watched her a little more than the others, perhaps because she was new, perhaps because they knew of her record. But in not standing out, she gave them no reason to call her out. Chou did feel sorry for the boys who got chewed out because they were bad at the exercises. Yuuki and other boys on the athletic teams were scolded even quicker by Kamoshida; he seemed to expect perfect forms out of them.

After classes, Chou headed out to get to the secluded alley. But a movement of mustard yellow caught her eye in the hall, drawing her attention to the principal and Kamoshida by the stairs. It might be wiser to head to another staircase. Her curiosity got the better of her, though; Chou crouched down to fiddle with her shoelaces a moment while listening in.

“All the students are anxious because of the transfer student,” Kamoshida said. “Do we really need to boost our reputation through such risky means? I’d think that my volleyball team does plenty for the school’s image.”

“It’ll be fine, we’re aiming for the best for the school,” the principal said. “Besides, you’re the star of our faculty! You bolster everyone’s morale just by being here. We’ll keep being a pinnacle of excellence with your assistance.”

“Heh, that’s a lot of pressure to be putting on a guy,” Kamoshida said with a smile.

“It’s nothing you can’t handle,” the principal said as Chou got back up and checked her bag in pretend. “See you tomorrow then.”

“Right,” Kamoshida said. Carefully, Chou glanced over and saw the coach scowl once the principal was down the stairs. He muttered something while he stormed past, not even noticing her. Good.

At the stairs, Chou noticed Yuuki had been nearby too. He got spooked on seeing her come around the corner. “Uh, excuse me,” Yuuki said quietly.

“Sure,” she said, stepping back to let him by. “Something up?”

“Uh, no, why are you worried?” he asked, pulling his shoulders in anxiously.

“You seem like you’re in trouble,” she said quietly.

“It’s nothing,” he said, then again added, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Chou asked again.

Yuuki paled, looking aside. Maybe he would explain? Whether he was thinking about it or not, Kamoshida suddenly bellowed down the hall, “Mishima! Get over here!”

“Um, sorry,” Yuuki said, bowing his head before hurrying off down the hall.

Chou wondered briefly if she should have let Yuuki get away before Kamoshida noticed him. It was too late now. But then, there could be something she could do. She headed downstairs to get to the alley, to start up the Metaverse tutorial again.

After another moment of dizziness, Chou found one of her yellow-eyed selves there. “Good, you came back,” she said with a confidant smile.

“Well something’s wrong with this school,” Chou said, putting her phone away. “I’d like to do something about it because people are getting hurt. We just have to do something about our apathy first.”

The other self nodded. “Right. And you should know, I am no longer just your wrath. The rest of us came together and agreed that participating in the Game should be worth it; I am nearly your complete unconscious self. We also felt like a certain visitor here should make a worthy mentor.”

“The black cat?” she asked.

“Yes, over there,” the other self said, pointing to the school entrance. “But whatever power contacted Apathy has allowed her to make the Shadows more aggressive. They’ll attack even you since you’re fighting apathy now.”

“All right,” Chou said, taking the toy gun and knife from her bag to have ready. Thankfully, there was a hidden pocket on the inside where she could keep them. She just needed to be careful around school with them.

They headed over, finding a cold mist around the school. The black cat was outside, right where her wrath had been last time. On turning around, the cat waved. “Hey there! I sniffed you out!”

“Seems you did,” Chou said.

The cat smiled. “Of course. It’s your cognition this time, so we’re safe to talk. I’m Morgana, and you?”

“Chou Amamiya,” he said, shaking the cat’s paw since she had it extended. “You can call me Chou, it’s fine.”

“Sure thing,” Morgana said, then looked back to the school doors. “I don’t sense any distortion here, but it’s a harsh place.”

“It’s harsh on me normally,” Chou said.

“Hmm, then is the problem trying to awaken your Persona in this place?” Morgana asked, tilting her head to the side and tapping it.

“No,” her unconscious self said. “My apathy is holding us back. Until we get it in line, it would keep any Persona unstable.”

Chou nodded. “I think your offer sounds good, but there’s that bit of doubt I can’t quite shrug off.”

Morgana looked back up at her. “Hmm, sounds odd but it seems you should convince your apathy to be, well, not apathetic. You should be safe because it’s your cognition this time.”

“No, something else is interfering,” the unconscious self said. “I’m doing what I can to keep them out, but I’m incomplete.”

“Well I’ll help since you’re not getting anywhere as a phantom thief without a Persona,” Morgana said, pulling out a sword that was nearly as tall as she was. “I can handle the Shadows here.”

“But let’s avoid what we can,” the unconscious self said. “These Shadows are a part of our mental defenses, even if they’re aggressive today.”

“Sure thing,” Morgana said. “Remember what I said about hiding? There’s not a lot of cover in these halls, but find what you can at corners and such. You can jump from cover to cover too! Being stealthy should avoid getting us noticed.”

The lips Shadow was back in the entryway; it sputtered and summoned two Shadows identical to it. “Hey smart ass, better watch yourself,” one of the lips said. “We’re going to smack you down.”

“Not on my watch,” Morgana said, brandishing her sword in a way that summoned blue flames. The flames grew behind the cat into a ghostly figure. As it grew more solid, the figure turned out to have a long fluttering cape and a large rapier. Morgana slashed her sword through the air, echoed by the spirit she’d summoned. A warm wind cut through the entryway, sending green slices through the lip Shadows. Their tongues waggled in response; two of them disappeared into black smoke. With a gunshot, Chou was able to take out the third.

“That’s a Persona, huh?” Chou asked.

“Right, that’s Zorro,” Morgana said, waving a paw to send him away. “I’ve been doing this a while; summoning can be draining at first. I’m around to help, so don’t worry. Focus on finishing this tutorial first.”

From there, they proceeded cautiously. Morgana and Chou’s unconscious self were able to easily gather shadows to themselves and hide with just door frames. Chou herself could manage at corners or by things that mostly covered her body. Sneaking down the open halls made it harder to keep inconspicuous. The cognitions didn’t notice her, but the Shadows sometimes did.

In the stairwell, Morgana stopped them a moment. “You’ve almost got it right,” she said. “Remember, this place is like a dream. Imagination is quite powerful here. You can imagine yourself sneaking through, right? You need to believe in that imagining with all your will, and you can do it. It does take some practice, but you’re nearly there.”

“Alright, I think I got it,” Chou said.

“Apathy isn’t too far ahead, in homeroom,” her unconscious self said.

Imagination and belief in imagination… Chou focused herself and was able to slip by three more Shadows on their way to her homeroom. Inside, they found the stubborn part of her unconscious sitting on a desk. She noticed them in spite of any attempt to hide. “Why are you insisting on this recklessness?” she asked. “It’s going to cause us all kinds of problems.”

“I want to do something to help the other students,” Chou said, emerging from the shadows to stand before her. “But I won’t be able to do much with normal means; they’re wary of me.”

“That wariness is part of why we shouldn’t care,” her apathy said, shaking her head. “They won’t know what we do.”

“That’s not a reason to not care,” Chou said. “Besides, your plans sound far more boring than doing what I can to help. I want to be in this Game.”

Something flickered in response to her statement. Her apathy narrowed her eyes. “I won’t let you.”

“You’re only a part of her,” Morgana said. “You can’t decide for her.”

“You sure about that?” Her apathy burst into black smoke, reforming into a dog with a spiked collar. She howled to attack them with fire.

Morgana retaliated with her wind attack while Chou’s unconscious self summoned another knife to attack with. Keeping back, Chou fired at the dog Shadow. Why was she doing this? Shouldn’t she listen to her own common sense? Her grip shook briefly, but she focused herself again. Her sense other than this apathy was to do what she could to help, and get revenge in the long run.

Shadowy somethings streaked through the air, gathering into the dog Shadow and making it bigger. With drool dribbling from its snarling lips, the dog went into a frenzy, biting her unconscious self twice before doing the same to Morgana. The cat yelped, commanding Zorro with a different stroke to cast green energy over herself, the unconscious self, and Chou. It was soothing; healing magic, perhaps? Chou stepped back and fired at the dog Shadow, trying to keep from being attacked herself.

Keeping with this Game would lead to ruin. If she didn’t end up dead, her life would be further destroyed. There was no real freedom anymore. Don’t head into the chasm. Stick to being as normal as she could, doing just enough to pass expectations. She could entertain herself in another fashion, not with the Metaverse. Accept the order of the world and there will be no need to worry about anything.

Apathy’s thoughts kept disrupting her; Chou couldn’t attack as often as the others. Most of the time, she could only stay on guard from the attacks. But she wasn’t going to give up. Apathy was blowing things out of proportion, or outright lying about all this. Maybe she didn’t even have outside help. Whether she did or not, Chou did not want to be held back by something like apathy.

The dog Shadow yelped, cowering now. That gave Chou’s unconscious self the chance to slash at it hard, destroying it in a burst of black goo. After a moment, the shadows reformed into her apathy. She was crouched down on the ground now. “Why are you so motivated to do this?” she asked, cowering with her last resistance. “This thing with the coach has nothing to do with us; we can avoid him. And this whole Metaverse is dangerous, that’s clear. Why do this?”

“If I can do something to help others, I’d rather do it,” Chou said, twirling her knife around. “And I’ve been wanting to do something challenging to me, something interesting. This seems like it could be good; you’re just making up excuses to not get involved.”

“Well that is what I am,” her apathy said. “And you are me, as I am a part of you.”

“Your thoughts are tempting,” she said. “But apathy would lead to ruin too, of myself and others. So you are a part of me, but one I want to resist.”

“It’s probably for the best,” her apathy said, getting up. “You’re determined enough to overcome me, so fine. I…” she suddenly clutched her head and crouched down again.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Morgana asked in alarm just before something ripped through the school with enormous invisible claws. They tore through her mind too, making her faint.

Before her mind completely went out, she thought she saw a glow like an angel.

* * *

Accessing the Metaverse through one’s own cognition in a place that wasn’t completely familiar… that was a dangerous trip since the unknown could become anything. It could draw out the darkness in one’s own mind especially. Who made that app and called this a tutorial? It was crazy to Morgana. Especially since it made Chou faint; her unconscious selves got vaporized since even they couldn’t stand up to an attack like that.

They were left in a white place. Shaky sketches of the school remained, trying to keep some semblance of sanity around. Not wanting to lose Chou, Morgana dashed over and grabbed hold of her arm. Her scent indicated that she was still alive. That had been a direct attack to her mind, though, from something immensely powerful. From whom, or what?

Twitching her whiskers, Morgana tried to sense it. There was an aura of something familiar: the scent of chains and the feel of pure authority. A deep voice that reached down into her bones rang out all around them. “That is not enough, Trickster. You must prove your willingness to fight against apathy and fear to your utmost to receive any more help. Find your way out of this pale abyss and back to the waking world.”

“Hell no, are you crazy?” Morgana muttered. “A human would go mad in this kind of realm in minutes. Or maybe… lose everything that is them. Maybe I got caught up in this?”

The deep voice did not say anything more, leaving its words as a sign nearby. This really was nuts; Chou would be lucky to get away without lasting damage from the attack that knocked her out, much less what would happen to her mind waking up in an unreal realm like this. Sensing around, Morgana wasn’t even sure how one was supposed to leave this abyss properly. She could think of a way to escape. They’d gotten here from the school and the most powerful cognition at that location was Kamoshida’s Palace. It was also a dangerous mental landscape, full of distortion. But compared to this, it was a sensible location where they could find a safe room.

But what to do about the damage she’d already taken? Morgana looked over to Chou’s face and noticed a gloved hand on her forehead. She twitched her whiskers and got a better sense for someone else at Chou’s side. With a faint aura, they were incredibly hard to see or even sense aside from the one glove. The person used some kind of magic on Chou, nothing that Morgana recognized.

“Hey, who’re you?” Morgana asked quietly.

A pair of dark blue eyes briefly met hers, then vanished along with the gloved hand. The pale abyss dissipated into a haze as well, leaving them on a red carpet in the grand entrance of Kamoshida’s castle. Sort of an out of the fire and back into the frying pan situation, but at least the Goho-M would work for Chou once she woke up. Now, what could Morgana do until then? Transformation wouldn’t be helpful since she needed to move Chou somewhere safer. She wasn’t strong enough, but if strength was needed…

“Zorro,” she called quietly, bringing her Persona back out. “Pick her up, we need to get to a safe room.”

It was a mental strain rather than physical, but Morgana could handle that while Zorro picked up the girl and slung her over his shoulder. Remembering her earlier explorations, Morgana headed left to a hall that should be less guarded. It had a staircase down to the dungeon near a staircase up to another floor. At the top of those second-floor stairs, there was a safe room where the mental distortion was weaker. They had to wait a few moments for the one guard patrolling the area to be far enough away, but they got to the safe room without being spotted. Zorro put Chou down on the floor before vanishing.

Since it was safe, Morgana cast Dia on her and checked her over. The healing magic had already done away with the few physical injuries she’d gotten fighting Shadows in her own cognition. As for her mental injuries… the damage didn’t seem as bad as it should be. Sure, Chou’s mental defenses were greatly weakened but there didn’t seem to be any other problems. Maybe the other being had healed her there? But then fighting the aggressive Shadows and apathy left the native spirits unable to protect her. It was good that they were out of the pale abyss with her like this, though she should get out to the normal world soon.

“Or maybe it’d be easier on her to call her Persona for the first time like this,” Morgana wondered aloud.

At any rate, once Chou woke up, they had to consider leaving the Palace as soon as possible.

* * *

She opened her eyes and found herself on the floor of an empty classroom. When had she fallen asleep? Her mind felt groggy and smashed, a scratch like a claw especially painful. After a blink, she was on a carpet in a room with dark stone walls and hefty antique furniture. What was going on? She rubbed her eyes and saw the stone walls. She could even feel the plush carpet she was lying on, at least until the room wobbled and she felt wooden floorboards again.

By the time she sat up, the room was made of stone. Hadn’t she bought a soda earlier? Chou got her bag to look for that; this place was strange, but she needed something to drink to feel clear-minded. Hopefully. She found the bottle and opened it up to take a long drink.

The door opened then, letting in a short cat person. That reminded Chou: she was in the Metaverse. They had challenged her apathy so she could start doing things here, only something else attacked them and everything went white…

“Good, you’re awake again,” Morgana said, coming to her side. “You must be feeling pretty bad after that.”

“I could use some aspirin,” she said, rubbing her head. “Don’t think I have any on me. What happened?”

Morgana then explained about an unknown power attacking her mind directly, as well as some strange pale abyss that they’d escaped by moving to the cognitive layer of Kamoshida’s castle. They were now in some safe room where distortion was weak; that explained why sometimes it looked like its real counterpart room. “Distortion is why this level of cognition in the Metaverse looks like a castle,” Morgana said. “Whoever this Kamoshida guy is, his worldview is warped by distorted desires.”

“So his imagination warps the school into his castle,” Chou said, then took another drink.

“You got it,” Morgana said, pleased at it. “We are in his mind, sort of like a dream since we’re working in his unconscious. Most people see the world as they see it, so their unconscious mind won’t affect those places in the Metaverse. But when desires become unhealthy, they distort a person’s worldview. Thus, the Metaverse when connected to a distorted person in the right place will turn into a distorted reality. I call these places Palaces. And the core of every Palace is the distorted desire itself: a Treasure.”

A dream warped by unhealthy desires, turning a person’s personal view of a place into a Palace. Chou glanced over at a richly decorated chair next to her. A flicker showed that the chair was really the simple ones from school. “If my mind wasn’t already in pain, this would be a headache,” Chou said.

“Oh, sorry,” Morgana said, embarrassed at not noticing. “You really should understand this place if we’re going through with our deal. You remember? I’ll teach you to be a phantom thief in the Metaverse, and you’ll help me find what I’m looking for.”

Chou nodded. “Right. It’s interesting stuff, I just won’t be good at thinking right now.”

“In that case, we should get out of here,” Morgana said. “It’d be best if we could get out of the castle first, since we came into it in a bad spot. But transporting could make your headache worse… where did you get into the Metaverse itself?”

“Outside the school, in a small alley,” she said, getting up. “Let’s try to get there.”

Morgana nodded. “All right, let’s be sneaky. I know a spot where we should be able to get out without going into the grand entrance hall. There’s only one guard around this area, so we shouldn’t be spotted.”

The one guard was in the hall outside the safe room. Fortunately, Morgana had a cat’s senses and was able to tell when they were safe to get out. They headed downstairs only to hear the guard upstairs coming over in a hurry. Morgana pointed over to where she wanted to go, then blended with the shadows. Moving to the wall, Chou tried to do the same. The pain in her head intensified, causing her to stumble. She caught herself on the wall to keep from falling down the stairs. That distracted Morgana from hiding.

“Hey!” Guards ran in from two directions on the lower floor, cornering them at the stairs. “Intruders! Stop!”

“Rats, we’re surrounded,” Morgana said, glancing around. “Cooperate for the moment, be ready to run.”

“Okay,” Chou said, getting off the stairs to steady herself.

The guard from upstairs ran down as well. “Halt, intruders!” he called.

“We heard you the first time,” Morgana complained boldly.

The guards marched them over to the entrance hall. It was a much grander room than those she’d seen here so far: red carpet everywhere, three giant candle chandeliers overhead, a split grand staircase that surrounded a giant portrait of Kamoshida as a knight. In front of the stairs, Kamoshida was waiting with a group of three other knights. He was dressed in a massive red cloak patterned with pink and white hearts, one that might be on the king of hearts in a deck of cards. But when he threw open that cloak, he was wearing nothing underneath. Was that really how he saw himself? Or maybe it was a result of mental distortion.

“What’s going on?” Kamoshida asked in a thundering voice.

“My lord, we’ve captured these intruders!” one of the knights said. “Including that cat again.”

“I am not a cat!” Morgana insisted, despite how that should be the least objectionable thing to their situation.

“You may as well be a rat for all I care,” Kamoshida said, sneering at them. “I will not tolerate any more of these intrusions, no matter who or what they are! Put the cat to death, immediately. As for the girl, I’ll take care of her myself.” From the lecherous leer on his face, Chou knew that she did not want to be near this guy.

“Yes sir!” the knights all said, quickly pinning Morgana in place with their weapons.

“Tch.” Morgana’s tail whipped around. She seemed like she might try to get out in any way she could. Since she was a cat person, it wouldn’t surprise Chou if she could slip under those weapons and rush away. One of the knights that had been with Kamoshida brought out a massive sword, coming over to behead Morgana.

It probably was Chou’s fault since she’d stumbled on the stairs. And while Morgana could get away, Chou wasn’t so sure of herself. She only had one of the knights with a sword at her back, true, but she also had this awful headache. She wanted to do something about this. Maybe summon her Persona? Despite the massive headache? She wasn’t going to get her revenge if she ended up dying here to… to this massive loser who was bullying students just because he’d been bullied himself. Something was rotten at Shujin and it had to do with this man. Just looking at him proved that he needed to be cut down to size and shown what sort of pain he was causing in those around him.

_Heh, you ready to make a contract then?_

Something seemed to be burning inside her, intensifying her headache. It was all the helplessness, frustration, fear, and anger that she’d been keeping quiet while all the people around her turned a blind eye to the injustice she’d been inflicted with. Now it seemed that another injustice was going on around her, one that people must be ignoring in order to make society go on smoothly. But she would not ignore this. She wouldn’t let her new friends suffer, nor would she let Morgana have even the slightest chance of dying because of her moment of weakness. She would not stay weak.

“Yes,” Chou said, putting her hands on her glasses. Something about them burned; it wasn’t making any sense, but she wasn’t listening to sense at the moment.

_Good, then show them the rebel soul of a Trickster. They will try to cast you off into the depths of hell; we won’t let them. Call on my name, Chou Amamiya. Vow to me that you would perform all sacrilegious acts in the name of your own justice!_

“What are you doing?” Kamoshida demanded, glaring at her now.

Chou tore her glasses off painfully and found herself holding onto a mask instead. That wasn’t important. “I vow this… get them, Arsene!” Chou shouted, firing at the head of one of the knights surrounding Morgana. It pierced right through the knight’s helm, dissolving him into a blood-red haze in seconds. There was also a chain surrounded in blue flames in her hand with the mask; blue flames wrapped around her body. Not thinking twice, Chou hurled the chain at another knight.

Arsene came out from behind her with the other half of the chain locked around his wrists. With a yank on the chain, Arsene decapitated the knight into a bloody mess. Morgana darted away to call on Zorro to blast the knight Shadows with wind. They could have bolted out the doors behind them but Chou’s fury didn’t feel sated. Arsene blasted the third knight with the same black spark that Chou’s unconscious self had used before. She killed off the knight that had been trying to kill Morgana, then looked for the current target of her fury.

Behind the knights, Kamoshida looked utterly terrified at the scene unfolding before him. He was backing off towards the stairs, hoping for a chance to flee. Coward, how dare he think himself a king. Chou ran right at him; Kamoshida might flee since he was more of an athlete than her. Before he could, Arsene flew right over with his large black wings to block his path. Chou drew her knife and slashed right through the pretentious royal cloak to cut into his side. Somehow that threw Kamoshida right off his feet and onto the stairs, where he gave an undignified squealing yelp. The knights who had been at his side rushed to defend him; Chou slashed another while Morgana struck them with wind again.

One of those knights survived; he whinnied like a horse, his shape trembling into that of a two-horned black beast. “W-wait! I don’t want to die! Let me serve you instead, just don’t kill me!”

It felt like her brain twanged; Chou did her best not to wince and show it. “Fine,” she said, nearly grumbling because of the reminder of the pain.

“Th-thank you, I will now serve you,” the beast said, bowing its head before turning into a white mask. It flew over to fuse into the one in her hand.

“Huh, what the hell?” Morgana said behind her.

In the moment that she’d agreed with the beast, Kamoshida scrambled back to his feet. He barreled up the stairs, shrieking, “Aiiiyeeeee, guards! Where are you?!”

There was a part of her that wanted to pursue Kamoshida, but there was also her throbbing head. “Let’s get out of here,” Chou said, putting the mask on like her glasses and heading back towards Morgana.

“Right, but back in the hall first,” Morgana said, leading her out of the entrance hall and into a side room. She leapt onto a grating that was in the wall. “Good, this leads outside like I thought. Help me unscrew it?”

“Sure.” Having nothing else suitable, Chou took her knife and looked over the screw holding the grating in place. It was for a flat-headed screwdriver, thankfully. She got it and another out with her knife, then lifted up the grate with Morgana to get outside that way. The area was laid out more like the school, so she pointed towards the narrow alley. “Over there.”

Morgana nodded and followed her over. After looking around, she came into the alley too. “Good, this should work better. But what was that you did with the Bicorn?”

“Spared him?” She touched the mask, noticing that she was now wearing red gloves that she’d never seen before. She also had a black coat that went down to her ankles, black boots that didn’t feel heavy, and rather classy clothes much like what Arsene had been wearing. But not the hat, unfortunately.

After getting over that surprise, she recalled the two-horned beast… Bicorn? It appeared in the alleyway with them. “Ah, Master!” the Bicorn said in a voice that echoed in Chou’s head. “Sorry, I can’t do much for healing, but I’ll fight your enemies with you!”

“That’s good, next time,” Chou said, thinking back to Arsene. She imagined a kind of reel, letting her shift. The Bicorn disappeared to be replaced by Arsene. Not saying anything, Arsene gave a knowing smile. There was something larger than life about him, from his bold red clothes to the way his eyes flickered with blue fire. But with those demonic black wings and chains latched all over him, it seemed like someone had tried to imprison him securely only to utterly fail at it. Someone who rebelled to escape the most severe imprisonment... yes, that's what she wanted to be.

“You have two Personas?” Morgana asked, staring with wide eyes at Arsene. “H-how? It takes tremendous effort to awaken one, or a supernatural gift, and then a strong personal growth to change the one you awaken. How do you end up with two the first time you try?”

“I don’t know,” Chou said, rubbing her forehead. “It just happened when I decided to spare the Bicorn. Although my head hurts even worse now.”

“Well that doesn’t surprise me,” Morgana said, casting her healing magic on Chou. “Huh, you must be someone really special then. But we can figure that out another time. Let’s get out of the Metaverse.”

“Gladly,” Chou said, taking out her phone. Arsene nodded and vanished.

Thankfully, the Metaverse app had a new message. ‘Congratulations on completing your tutorial. Next time, you will be briefed on requests. Press the ‘Return Home’ button in order to leave the Metaverse. Note: if you are in another person’s cognition, you will need to use ‘Return Home’ in the location that you entered.’

“Let’s hope this Navigator considers this the place I entered,” Chou said, pressing the ‘Return Home’ button.

It did, thankfully, rippling the air and returning them to normalcy. However, the ripples were stronger around Morgana. When they settled down, she appeared to be a normal black and white cat with a bright yellow collar. “Are you going to be all right getting home yourself?” she asked, able to speak.

Her head still hurt, although the sharpness of it was dulled. And the odd outfit that had been on her was gone; the mask was back to being glasses. “Sure, as long as the wait on trains isn’t too long,” Chou said. She should be able to drop by a convenience store for some headache medicine on the way.

“Okay, but be careful,” Morgana said. “I want to check out this location in reality, since I’ve only seen it as the Palace and your cognition. It might give some clues about getting further in the Palace.”

“Maybe,” Chou said, feeling that Morgana would know better than her about that. “You be careful too, since they might lock up the building for the night. Tomorrow’s a school day, so I’ll meet you by the entrance or the courtyard, whichever ends up better for you to hide in.”

“Got it,” Morgana said. “We’ll exchange more info then; see you tomorrow!” She then headed off to the school to scout it out.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Chou asked herself once she was on her own. Then she grinned as she headed back towards the station. “Whatever it is, it feels awesome.”

A phantom thief… a trickster… this was going to lead to something incredible, she was certain of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand how Japanese honorifics and politeness works, but am not familiar enough with the language to use them frequently. But I do use them here when I feel it'd be something I understood if someone was talking to me that way. So while Mishima in-game is referred to by his surname (and uses surnames of others a lot because he's very polite), I'm going to be referring to him as Yuuki for this story.
> 
> Of course, there will be other characters I do that for, and times when I might slip-up in that convention just because of how one gets used to how the translation presents itself. All well.


	5. The Cat's Meow

4/13

In a dark place lit by shining stars and glowing electronics, a video feed showed a quiet cafe. Some late customers left, leaving just two in the room: the owner and a young stranger. “You feeling better now?” the owner asked with a gruff edge.

“Yeah, thanks,” the stranger said, looking up from a book she’d brought down.

In the dark place, she paused in her work to pay more attention to the camera feed. What was she reading? The security camera wasn’t that impressive; she had to zoom in with her tapped feed. It didn’t seem like a manga.

“Guess you must be to be back to reading,” Sojiro said. He was familiar, a good person. But what of the stranger? “It looked serious when you walked in here.”

“That was before the medicine kicked in.” She put a red bookmark in towards the end and set the book down. Good, the book was… “Hey, Sojiro? May I adopt a cat?”

“Cat?” she asked, surprised at the question.

It seemed Sojiro was surprised too. “Huh, a cat? I don’t know about that. This is a cafe, after all, and I have to meet health codes.”

“So she is living there,” she mumbled to herself. “But why?”

“I know, I’ll keep her things upstairs,” the stranger said. “It’s just, there’s been this black cat at school. She’s been friendly with me at school, more than most of the actual people there.”

Sojiro sighed at that. “Chou…”

“Chou…” she mumbled, then caught the title of the book: Evolution of Western Philosophy. “Huh.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s a stray,” Chou said. “And my family has kept a few cats, so I know how to take care of them. I feel kind of bad leaving her around school, although somebody else would probably pick her up before long.”

After a moment of quiet, Sojiro said, “Well, I suppose taking care of a pet would prove that you have a sense of responsibility. But you will need to keep her out of the kitchen and handle any expenses yourself. That would include getting her checked out by a vet since she is a stray.”

“Sure, I picked up a job already,” Chou said, smiling at getting permission. “I’ll do my best to keep her behaved, although she is a cat and they don’t always do what you want.”

“Cat lover, complicated book reader, amateur philosopher, glasses wearer,” she mumbled. “What a nerd… wish I could talk to her.”

“You could say the same for teenagers,” Sojiro said, making Chou laugh.

But to talk to her, someone she’d only watched from a safe distance away… that was too scary.

* * *

‘Not much to write about today, especially with this headache. Hung out with my friends, met that clever little kitty again. She’s a chatterbox; I hope she likes it here. Oh yeah, I did keep my classmates from having extra homework because I knew about Greek philosophers. The social studies teacher is a jerk, but if he keeps asking questions like that, maybe my classmates will accept me.’

* * *

4/14

A flash of red gloves, right before getting slashed and humiliated…

“It was just a dream,” Suguru muttered. Just a dream… but it made him tense, like someone was out to get him. He kept watching the people around him, looking for red gloves or a hidden knife. It wasn’t real. But not being real didn’t stop this sense of low-key dread, like he was in danger.

It wasn’t like he could find whoever it was and knock some sense into them. They had a knife and weren’t afraid to use it, if they were real. And today was the volleyball rally that he’d planned to make sure every student was excited for the upcoming Nationals. While it gave the students something good to focus on, it meant that he was supposed to be a goody-two-shoes coach today. Because of that, there would be no knocking sense into those who weren’t trying hard enough. He was leading the team correctly; these easily distracted teenagers need hard love to be honed into champion material. It did feel good to be the one in control now, giving them the honing they needed.

Well if he couldn’t take control one way, he could always press one of the girls into going on a serious date with him. That’d be a good way to release this stress and have a good time. Maybe Shiho, maybe that cute freshman, maybe that exotically lovely Ann… yes, Ann would be good.

* * *

Down in the courtyard, Chou found Morgana near the vending machines over lunch break. “There you are,” she said, setting her bento box on the table there. “Sorry, I couldn’t get an earlier train here.”

“It’s all right, I got to make some more observations,” Morgana said. “But man, I feel terrible after staying here overnight. I didn’t expect that. This world is strange.”

“Really?” she asked, opening up the box. “I did bring some extra chicken in case, here.” And a small dish to share bottled water with; Chou wasn’t sure what kind of clean water a cat could find around here.

“Oo, that smells good,” she said, accepting the bits of chicken on a napkin. She finished it and the water off, then wiped her face before speaking any more. “I feel better now. Was I just hungry and thirsty? I didn’t expect that so fast coming out of the Metaverse. Is that weird?”

“Yeah, it is,” Chou said. “Did you ever eat or drink in there?”

Morgana tilted her ears down. “Well, uh, I took some medicine occasionally when I got hurt, but that was it. But I am human, I’m sure of it! I must’ve gotten pretty messed up in the Metaverse, huh?”

“Seems like it,” she said.

“Wait, can’t you hear it now?” someone called from nearby. Morgana ducked in her chair. “There’s a cat around here, I swear.”

“I don’t hear anything,” someone else said. The two teachers walked past, glanced in, but didn’t ask her about a cat.

“It seems like everyone but you can’t hear me talk,” Morgana said in a loud whisper. “They just hear meowing. But I really am human…”

Was she? But whether she was or not, she knew about the Metaverse and seemed like a more reliable teacher than the app. “You think the answer is somewhere in the Metaverse?”

“Yeah, probably Mementos,” Morgana said. “You gonna help me out?”

Chou petted the cat’s head. “Of course, that can be part of the deal. You teach me about the Metaverse and being a phantom thief so I can be competitive in this game I’ve gotten wrapped up in; I’ll help you figure out what happened to you and take care of you in this world. I’ve even got permission for you to stay where I’m staying, so you don’t have to fend for yourself in the streets.”

“Great, that’ll work out wonderfully!” Morgana said, perking her ears up happily. She held up a paw. “It’s an official deal then.”

“Deal,” Chou said, taking the paw and shaking it.

Something chimed, although Morgana didn’t react to it. “Alright! But you still have to finish school, huh?”

“Yeah, there’s some rally going on this afternoon,” Chou said. “I have to at least stay around school.”

“That’s fine,” Morgana said. “I wanted to check out the gymnasium too, but haven’t been able to get in. This rally could be a good chance.”

“There’ll be a lot of people there, but you should be able to sneak around,” she said. “Meet you back here after school?”

Morgana nodded, something odd to see a normal cat do. “Sure thing. Later!”

The rally began right after lunch; she had a moment to check her phone on the way to change into gym clothes. The Metaverse app had a notice. ‘New Confidant formed: Morgana, The Magician’. It had a strange picture attached to it, of a guy at a table with various things in front of him. It didn’t give her any more information about why the app thought this was important to note. When would she get more answers than just ‘go do this thing and figure it out yourself’? Morgana should help with that, though.

While at the rally, Chou spotted Morgana sneaking around where people weren’t watching. She stood out in being black here. But it seemed to be working for her. For herself, the ‘rally’ was just a series of volleyball matches, a team of teachers against a team of students. Some people cheered, other people looked bored… she noticed both Ann and Ryuji weren’t happy to be here. It wasn’t boredom, though; they acted like they wanted to be anywhere but here.

She slipped over and sat by the wall next to Ryuji once she noticed Shiho go sit by Ann. “Not much of a rally,” Chou said.

Ryuji frowned. “Tell me about it. He’s just stroking his own ego and everyone lets him.” He sighed. “This sucks.”

From the way one of the boys on the student team scrambled to return the ball, it seemed like these weren’t all students on the volleyball team. Chou recognized one of the students as Yuuki right as Kamoshida leapt up confidently to the ball and spiked it right back over the net with enough force to knock Yuuki out cold. Chou winced at that, reminded of the volleyball cannon from the castle dungeon. Crossing under the net, Kamoshida checked up on Yuuki and got someone to take him to the nurse’s office. It looked reasonably like concern. That is, until he cheerily called for the match to continue with another student volunteer before the teacher with Yuuki had even left the room.

“I don’t see how anyone could be fooled by that fake act,” Ryuji muttered, picking up the ball that had rolled by them to throw back at the students watching over the equipment.

“Fake as a crocodile’s tears,” Chou agreed. Ryuji nodded in satisfaction although he still looked annoyed. Meanwhile, Chou had gotten an idea. “We’ve been here long enough, right? Wanna ditch?”

“I’d love to, but the school counselor has got it out for me,” Ryuji said. “But I guess as long as we’re still on school grounds… yeah, let’s go.”

It seemed like they weren’t the only ones who had the idea to leave the rally early, or maybe not attend at all. Ryuji waved her over to the courtyard, which was a place Chou had in mind too. While the Metaverse was some kind of dream with time slowed to a crawl, she still got tired sneaking down the halls and fighting there. It could help to get more used to running around like that… and Ryuji had been on the track team here, right? On top of that, it seemed like Ryuji could use another friend as much as Chou did.

“Well now what?” Ryuji said, kicking the ground. “I’d like to do something fun, but there isn’t a lot of that at this school.”

If it was herself, the library would be fine. Chou didn’t think Ryuji would like that option. “Hey, about the other day, did you really think I was the athletic sort?”

“Well, I might’ve been hoping for that,” he admitted. “You seem like you could be good if you tried.”

“You think?” Chou said, rubbing her head. “I usually do just well enough in gym to not get noticed. Though running can be fun.”

“Yeah, a runner’s high is great, isn’t it?” Ryuji said, looking cheered up at the distraction. “I actually got in here on a track scholarship. What do you like, sprints or endurance runs? Or maybe the long jumps and hurdles?”

“Uh, I did whatever the gym teachers told me to,” Chou said sheepishly, to make him think she’d been unsure or embarrassed about it. “It might be interesting to actually try at it, or at least get in better shape.”

“Keeping in good shape is good for your health and all,” Ryuji said, then lost his spirit again. “But there isn’t a track team at Shujin anymore. It got dissolved last year.”

“Why’s that?” Chou asked, although she expected that Ryuji wouldn’t explain it fully yet.

“Eh, it’s a long story, and a big mess,” he said.

Now, to see if he was interested. “Well, could you show me how to get better at running?”

“Huh, me?” he asked, surprised at the question.

Chou nodded. “The gym teacher here doesn’t seem too thrilled with me. Besides, it feels like I should get used to more exercise, what with all the rushing about from train to train getting to here from where I’m staying in Yongen.”

That made Ryuji chuckle. “Oh yeah, you ain’t used to city life. Well, all right, sounds like a good idea to me. We’re out here in our gym clothes anyhow, so here, let’s start with some stretches and simple exercises. When you’re serious about running, it’s always important to warm up before you go and cool down after you do. Oh, and you got some water handy?”

At that, there was another chime in Chou’s head. Again? Ignoring it for the moment, she set down her bag and followed Ryuji’s instructions. It was more interesting than most gym classes since Ryuji was clearly passionate about athletics. He spent probably a good five minutes just talking about muscle wear, how it helped in building strength and how to avoid serious damage. In fact, Chou caught sight of other students listening in and trying to avoid being noticed for it. Chou pretended not to notice them and Ryuji didn’t notice at all.

Classes let out and Ryuji excused himself to go run some errands for his mother. Chou went to change back into her regular uniform, then came back to the courtyard to wait on Morgana. As for the chime… it was as she thought. The ‘Confidants’ section now had Ryuji Sakamoto listed as The Chariot. There was something peculiar to these cards; this one had a guy with an arm in a cast trying to drive a horse-drawn chariot. Chariot, Magician… were these Tarot cards? She didn’t know much about Tarot, just bits and pieces she’d picked up reading about other things. But if the app was going to use the cards for something, it only made sense to learn the real thing.

Among the other stuff she should probably learn to deal with this Metaverse game: psychology (it was specifically Jungian, right?), dreams, phantom thievery, probably more things, and more about Tokyo if the Palaces were going to be real places, and now Tarot…

“Sorry, did I make you wait long?” Morgana said, hopping up on the table she’d sat at. “It’s not as easy getting around in this form.”

“It’s fine, I was just thinking,” Chou said, putting her phone away. “Done looking around here?”

“I think so, yes,” she said. “Let’s head on out and check my new residence!”

Chuckling, she rubbed Morgana’s head. “Yes, but there’s something we need to do first. I got permission to take you in, but only if you see a vet first.”

“A what?”

Chou felt surprised for a moment, then recalled that Morgana didn’t remember eating or drinking before leaving the Metaverse yesterday. “An animal doctor,” she explained. “My guardian thinks you’re a stray cat because I couldn’t explain that you’re a phantom thief from a realm of dreams. It’s just a precaution.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” Morgana said. “But I’m sure I’m perfectly healthy! Just, not what I should be.”

Nodding to satisfy her, Chou said, “I’m sure. You should ride in my school bag on the way there, unless you want to try running through a crowded train station on your own.”

“In your bag?” she asked, indignant. After a moment’s thought, she sighed. “Guess I don’t have a choice if you have to take a train home. All right, but be careful with me!”

Chou had a thought occur to her. “Sure, and here, we should take your collar off.”

“But it’s so fashionable,” Morgana protested, although she held still to let her unhook it.

Holding the collar out in front of Morgana, Chou said, “Yes, but how am I supposed to pass you off as a stray if you already have a collar?”

Morgana looked embarrassed at that, lowering her head. “Oh… right, that makes sense. Sorry, my mind’s all a blur when it comes to this side of reality. But I guess it means I’m really depending on you here.”

“And I’m depending on you in the Metaverse,” Chou said, smiling at her. Then she opened up her bag. “There should be space, so get comfortable.”

In the station, she spotted an extra pet fee on the ticket info sign. Chou warned Morgana to keep quiet and snuck her through instead. She didn’t have a lot of money when she’d have to spend a fair amount getting pet supplies and the vet visit. Thankfully, she’d spotted a pet store that catered to cats in Shibuya the other day. The Cat’s Meow was just off of Central Street; it included a veterinary clinic and a cat shelter in the same building.

There was an interesting sign on the outside: the store was having a special promotion to get the stray cats it took in adopted. It included a deal on the supplies she was looking for: litter box, a jug of litter, a bag of cat kibble, a brush, a water and food dish, even a pair of nail trimmers. While it was for their shelter cats, perhaps she could get the supply kit for Morgana? It’d depend on how convincing she could be to the staff here.

As she had along the way, Morgana peeked out of the bag since she’d stopped. “This the place?”

“Yup,” she said, heading in.

There were a few customers inside, including some kids who were eager about the adoption promotion. An older woman was also in the store, keeping an elegant Siamese cat on a leash while shopping for it. Near the door, one of the staff greeted her with a smile. “Good afternoon, welcome to The Cat’s Meow! Are you looking to adopt a cat today?”

“Yes, but I’ve already got the cat,” Chou said.

Since she’d kept the bag’s cover loose, Morgana popped out to put her paws on Chou’s shoulder to get a better look. “And it’s more like I’m adopting you,” Morgana said.

“Oh, I see!” the woman said, smiling more sincerely now. “My, this one seems spirited.”

“She thinks she’s adopting me,” Chou said, since it would amuse them both. “I picked her up at school; is your vet open to walk-ins?”

She nodded and gestured to some stairs. “Yes, up on the second floor. And we don’t mind you bringing your kitty friends along when shopping here, just keep her close to you and try not to disturb the other cats.”

“Got it,” she said, patting Morgana’s paw. Thankfully, she took the hint and dropped back in the bag.

They had to wait in the vet’s lobby, so Chou let Morgana out of the bag to sit in the chair by her. “We could start your lessons on the Metaverse now since we have the time,” she said.

Leaning back in the chair, Chou held a hand up to quietly reply, “I have to be careful with anything I say since the vet’s staff is around.”

“In this kind of place, they won’t think you’re weird for speaking to a cat,” Morgana pointed out.

“I’ll give you that,” she said.

“Right. Okay, so I got around to telling you that a Palace is when someone’s cognition becomes severely warped by strong desires, and the core of the Palace is the manifestation of those desires, the Treasure.”

Chou nodded. “It’s odd that a distorted desire would be a treasure, but I got that much.”

Morgana rubbed at her nose a moment. “Well, hmm… the Metaverse is formed by cognition. Thus, with something that a Palace’s owner sees as valuable to who they are, the thing becomes a treasure even if other people would see it as something terrible.”

“One person’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say,” Chou said. “So one person’s sin is another’s ideal.”

“Exactly. Now with a Palace, this kind of thing feeds off itself to grow more influential over the person. Their unconscious mind wants something and gives them some happiness in exchange for being satisfied. If the thing they want is something that’s shamed by society, both their conscious and unconscious mind will come up with reasons to validate seeking what they want. Their distorted desires become a central part of their life. And I’m not too sure of this, but I feel it’s true: when a Palace manifests in the Metaverse, it affects others who are in the real place and deal with the Palace owner. It might force their validations through the Collective Unconscious to intimidate those around them into buying into those validations.”

After glancing over at the staff, Chou leaned closer to Morgana. “Hang on, collective unconscious? I heard that when I got pulled into the game, but it wasn’t explained.”

“I suppose this is complicated stuff to most people,” Morgana said. “But you’ve seen it in action already. You know how your school has the layers of reality, your Metaverse cognition of the school, and the Palace that is Kamoshida’s cognition of the school? You can think of the Collective Unconscious as what lies beyond those layers, and beyond the layers of every other cognition of the school. Everyone is connected way deep down, at the border of dreams and reality. You had to deal with your Unconscious Self, but there’s a part of your mind even deeper than that. That’s the Collective Unconscious.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to match that up with something she’d read or heard before. There was something. “It was like… Brahma is the pond and you are merely a drop in that pond causing small ripples. But if you think on it, a drop of water is still a part of the pond of water. You are only a drop, yet you are still a part of Brahma. Something like that?”

“Yeah, something like that,” she said.

She nodded. “I see, then the owner of a Palace is like someone smashing a rock into the pond’s surface. It’s going to cause lots of ripples of negativity around them.”

Morgana nodded. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

“It sure feels like that at Shujin,” Chou said, recalling the rumors and intentional avoidance. “Though I thought it was just me.”

“I saw signs it was happening with other Palaces I checked out too,” she said. “Among the things I remember is something about Treasures. Think about this: what would happen if someone’s Treasure was stolen out of their Palace?”

Stealing the Treasure? The Treasure was a manifestation of their distorted desires… the core of the Palace that affected those around it negatively. The Treasure was a central part to the owner’s cognition, the way they saw the world and the way they thought. “They would be forced to change their mind about what they do because without the Treasure, their validations for their sins suddenly don’t hold up.”

“Correct, at least I think so,” Morgana said. “They would be forced to face their sins instead of excusing them. At some point, I decided that I would steal the Treasures of evil people and make them atone for their sins. I don’t remember why, but it feels really important to me. That’s one of the things I want to do to remember what I forgot: steal some Treasures to make Palaces vanish.”

“That would be amazing if it works to make them atone,” Chou said, intrigued by this possibility. “I was told that as the Trickster, I could make people feel the weight of their sins. This sounds like something I should be trying. And while I don’t have any proof, what I saw in the Palace suggests that Kamoshida is abusing his volleyball team. Those guys have injuries that can’t be excused as tough training alone.”

“I feel like that’s the case too,” she said, putting her front paws on the arms of the chairs between them. “But there is something I should warn you about. Desires are a part of what make people people. The desire to eat, sleep, love, keeping living, those are all normal and you need them to exist. The Treasure is a manifestation of their distorted desires and stealing it should end the distortion. But if we’re not careful, stealing a Treasure might take all of their desires.”

“Like a mental shutdown? People have been talking about those.”

“Right, they might end up not able to take care of themselves, and even die because their desires are gone.” Morgana patted her arm. “But leaving the Treasures be means that people like Kamoshida will keep doing what they’re doing in hurting others and unconsciously forcing their negativity onto them. Are you willing to take that kind of risk?”

Chou rubbed her head, some reminders of yesterday’s headache throbbing. “Well I don’t want to kill people,” she whispered, enough for Morgana to hear her. “But I also don’t want to ignore the problem. There isn’t a lot I can do because of my probation. If I confront Kamoshida even peacefully, he could get me expelled and that could be cause for my probation to get revoked. Then I would be going straight to juvie, no questions asked.”

“Seriously?” Morgana asked in concern.

Nodding, she said, “I pissed off somebody powerful and he made sure to legally chain me down as much as possible. If I knew who he was, I’m sure he’d have a Palace. And I would want to raid that one and make him atone, even at the risk of him ending up dead. Then, starting with Kamoshida is the logical choice. Not today, though, my head hurts again.”

“Doesn’t surprise me, not after yesterday,” Morgana said. “You should probably keep out of the Metaverse for a couple more days at least, make sure your mind’s settled first. But I get you. I don’t want to be a killer either, but this is important enough for the risk.”

“Amamiya-san, the vet’s ready to see your cat,” the clerk at the desk said.

“Sure,” she said, getting her bag and leaving the seat. “Come on, Morgana.”

“All right, if I have to,” she said, jumping off the chair and following her over.

The vet was a man with his hair in a short ponytail. There was a way that he didn’t look quite at her that reminded Chou of an old friend; he might be introverted and asocial except for cats and certain people just the same. “Would you put Morgana up on the exam table?” he asked, gesturing to the one in the middle of the room.

“I can get up there,” Morgana said, jumping up after a moment.

“She seems smart,” Chou said.

The vet nodded, holding a hand up to let Morgana sniff him before starting the exam. “I spotted you talking with her in the lobby; she was a stray, right?”

“Right, she was around my school,” she said.

“You seem to have experience with cats to interest one with how you talk,” the vet said. “That’s good.”

“My family has kept a few different cats over the years,” Chou said. “She’ll be the first one that’s just mine.”

“We’ll agree that me looking like a pet to others means that we’re equals to each other, okay?” Morgana said, to which Chou nodded.

“A few scars from getting into fights,” the vet said as he brushed his hands along Morgana’s side. He snapped his fingers behind Morgana’s head, getting the cat’s ears to shift. “Unusual eyes too. Not much weight, but she has such a small frame that it should be fine with regular feeding. To be expected… she’s in fairly good shape despite being on her own. There is something else strange to her.”

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Morgana asked as he was checking her stomach area.

“Is it a problem?” Chou asked.

The vet shook his head. “No, just a genetic oddity in that she’s lacking sexual characteristics. Though I’d need some x-rays to be certain, there’s no external signs… I don’t think it’ll cause any problems, but then it is a rare condition. You might not have to worry about getting her fixed, at least.”

“Guess that is odd.”

“I’d like to give her some shots to keep her healthy, but there shouldn’t be any problems with you taking her in.”

“Shots?” Morgana asked, twitching her ears.

“That’s fine, to keep her healthy,” Chou said, hoping she’d agree.

“Fine, if it means something other than gun shots,” she said.

“And you’re a high school student?” the vet asked, to which she nodded. “Uh-huh… I’ll send you with a note to take downstairs, to let Morgana count for the cat adoption promotion. It’ll let me give you a discount on the check-up and shots too, but only this visit.”

Great, she didn’t even have to ask. “Thanks, that helps a lot,” she said.

“She’s quite attached to you already, so it’s only fair,” the vet said. “I’ll be back in a moment with the vaccines.”

“Even if he wants to shoot me, he seems like a nice guy,” Morgana said once the vet was in a nearby hall looking through a shelf.

Chou leaned on the table to whisper, “He probably likes cats better than people, but that’s okay.”

“You make quick judgments, but I’d agree.” She glanced back down the hall. “But what did he mean by fixing me? Of course I don’t need fixing; I’m great as I am!”

“He means no kittens,” Chou said.

“What?” Unfortunately, the vet was coming back in, so she couldn’t explain more than that.

Fortunately, she had the money to cover the discounted vet visit and cat supplies. It left her wallet thin, but she should be fine if she worked at the florist shop a few days a week. She headed back to Leblanc, being extra careful with Morgana in her school bag around one arm and the large shopping bag from the cat store in the other. In the cafe, a few customers were around. They were mostly older folk, but there was also a woman dressed like she’d be a better fit for a punk concert than the old-fashioned Leblanc. Sojiro nodded to Chou, but ignored her in favor of listening to one of the customers at the bar.

“Who’s that girl?” the customer said as Chou went down the hall to the attic stairs.

“Just a kid I’m helping out for a friend,” Sojiro said. Chou lingered long enough to hear him say, “She got accepted to a good school but didn’t have anywhere to stay. Hasn’t been trouble so far.”

That was a decent enough excuse; she closed the door and headed up the stairs. The shopping bag went down on the table by the stairs, and her school bag went to her bed. “We’re here,” she said, opening the flap.

Morgana’s paws stretched into view before she came out with a yawn. “Man, I’m getting groggy.”

“You did have to get shots,” Chou said, sitting on the bed by her. “Well, this is it.”

After a moment, her eyes went wide. “Huh, this place? You live here? Is this an abandoned house?”

“An abandoned attic over a cafe, yes,” she said.

“It’s a mess,” Morgana said, looking at the haphazardly stacked books on the shelf nearby.

Chou nodded. “Sojiro barely touched this attic when he bought the building and the last owner didn’t take everything. A lot of those big ones are coffee table books: loads of glossy photos with shallow information. But he said I can do what I want with most anything here, so I’ll just pawn those off.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, then stretched again. “Well it’s old and a mess, but you know, it’s heaven compared to the dungeon cells of Kamoshida’s Palace. We’ll just have to make the best of this.” Then she yawned again.

She petted Morgana’s head. “Right, but it seems you should go ahead and get some sleep.”

“Don’t treat me like a cat,” Morgana said, although she purred despite herself. “And yeah, I’ll just rest for today. Don’t be up too late yourself now.” Before long, she was curled up in a ball fast asleep.

Working as quietly as she could, Chou set up the litter box and a spot for the food and water dishes. Normal cats didn’t like those areas close together; there wasn’t a lot of open space but she kept them as apart as she could. Her homework due tomorrow was already done, so she checked over a pile of junk that she’d put behind the ladder. There was a space heater that still looked functional, although it was warm enough that she wouldn’t need it for months. For now, it could stay out of the way with the ladder and an old fan. There was also a sticker printer that could communicate with her phone. That could make for some fun.

But there were these plastic containers of some kind, unlabeled but bright red. They smelled of something, perhaps kerosene? It was something to check with Sojiro about. There were also all the large books around that she didn’t want to keep. She picked up one about rivers in China, then grabbed her umbrella since it had started raining outside. Around the corner, there was a second-hand shop that she wanted to check with.

There was a small amount of books there, in a bookshelf that also was for sale. The old man there introduced himself as the owner. “You’re the kid that’s moved into the cafe over there, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “Yes. Actually, I came to ask if you would buy things too. There’s a lot of things in that attic that neither I nor Sakura-san can use, like this book. There’s so many of them, but only a few that seem interesting to read.”

“Hmm, I know the previous owner liked to decorate the place with books. Let me see.” He took the book and flipped through it. “I might be able to take some things off your hands, but you could do better at a proper pawn shop. A retired fellow like me doesn’t flip inventory often enough to buy many things at once. I could give you, hmm, a hundred yen for this book. And, here let me get you a card…”

“That works for me,” Chou said. Glancing at the books there, she spotted one that said ‘Masks of the Heart’ and picked it up to check.

After a minute, the owner came back with the yen and two business cards. “Here, this is for a shop in Shibuya, one I exchange goods with on occasion. The owner acts gruff and intimidating, but he’s a good fellow past that. He does more business on the buying end of things than I do.”

“Sure, thank you,” she said, accepting the cards.

The old man smiled and tapped the other card. “And if you’re willing to go out of your way with the trains, your books would be best received over in Jinbocho. It’s known as Book Town for good reason. That shop is run by a friend of mine and he deals fairly in buying and selling all kinds of books. If you’re a reader, then I’m sure you’d like to look around there too.”

She smiled back. “That sounds great. Oh, and I’ll just trade that book for this one, does that work?” The back cover confirmed that it was about Carl Jung’s theories on the human mind, including sections about the Tarot and personas. She just couldn’t tell yet if the book meant the Personas she was using in the Metaverse.

After checking the price tag, the owner agreed to the trade and wished her well. Chou headed back and found that the punk woman was the only customer left. She looked out the door a moment, before looking over at her with a bored expression. But it wasn’t the sort of ‘distract me’ kind of bored, more like ‘life is a drag and I’m too tired to care’ bored. If someone looked like that, they usually weren’t in a mood to speak.

But when they did get to speaking, they usually had a lot on their minds. “It’s a cool rain, so it might be a dreary evening,” Chou mentioned.

“Oh?” She looked back out the door, dissatisfied but not frowning. “Too bad.”

“I hope she’s not bothering you,” Sojiro said with a clear undertone of ‘don’t bother the customers’.

Thankfully, the punk woman shook her head. “She’s not; it must have been obvious I was wondering what the rain was like. Thanks for the coffee. It was good as always.”

“You’re welcome,” Sojiro said. “Have a good evening, Doctor.”

She shrugged before getting her bag and leaving. Since the customers were all gone, Chou picked up her cup and platter to bring over to the sink. “She’s a doctor?”

“Right, she runs a clinic in the neighborhood,” he said. “People say that she gives crappy exams and prescribes homemade medicines. But I just know her from her visits here, never been by her clinic. Are you going to wash the dishes?”

“Sure, but mind if I go back upstairs real quick first?” she asked. “I brought the cat here; she fell asleep because she got some shots at the vet and I want to make sure she’s fine.”

There was the faintest of hints of a smile on Sojiro’s face, but he didn’t let it last long. “I figured that was why you brought that big bag in. Mind if I come check on her too?”

“It’s fine,” Chou said, setting the dishes by the sink before heading up. “There was something I wanted to ask you about: there’s a number of plastic containers that might’ve had kerosene or something in them. I wasn’t sure what to do with them.”

“If it was fuel, they need to be disposed of properly,” Sojiro said, following her up. “Huh, didn’t realize that’s what they were. I’ll take care of that since I know what to do with them.”

“Thanks, that’ll help free up some space.”

As she’d left her, Morgana was curled up on the bed fast asleep. She didn’t even stir as they came up. “Did the vet clear her as being fine?”

Chou nodded. “Yes, Morgana’s fine. A little under weight and scratched up from fending for herself before, but some proper care will get her in good shape.”

“That’s good, wouldn’t want her bringing fleas or something in your room,” Sojiro said. “Morgana, huh? Interesting name.”

“It jumped in my mind and stuck there,” she explained, rather than explaining that Morgana called herself that. “You like cats too, huh?”

“Now I never said that,” he said, trying to be gruff again. “They can be a pain, acting cute to get their way.”

“Well having a cat again makes this place feel a bit more like home,” Chou said.

Sojiro seemed satisfied with that. They each took some of the plastic containers downstairs to leave by the cafe’s dumpster to be taken care of later. Then Chou went ahead and washed up the dishes for Sojiro. It couldn’t hurt to help him out every so often.

* * *

‘Today, I adopted a cat. The vet said that Morgana is fine, but she’s actually gender neutral. She seems clever too, so I guess I have a unique cat now. I’ll have to make sure she knows not to cause Sojiro trouble.

‘It’s not as bad as yesterday, but I’ve had a headache off and on today. I hope this isn’t trouble.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be a bonus update tomorrow for International Fanworks Day, so check back by!
> 
> I'm generally a light tagger, but I've been trying to make the ones here more interesting and accurate. And you might've noticed the 'Original Palaces' there now. Yup, it'll be a while before we can go off the rails, but different targets and palaces will show up in time. For now, Kamoshida makes too much sense as the first target, and after that you'll see how things will change.


	6. Velvet Blue and Crimson Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Fanworks Day! Hope you find some good stuff to read, and have a second chapter for the week :)

It was cool, but her blanket wasn’t in reach. The bed was a lot harder than she thought it was too. While it was an old makeshift thing, the mattress was comfortable enough. That’s what she thought, and yet this was like sleeping on bare wood. Something chinked in response to her moving her hand, like chains. Chains?

“Be careful,” a girl said sadly. She spoke for a little more, but her words quickly became indistinct.

Chou opened her eyes, hoping to find the butterfly girl. There was no one there, just herself in a tiny stone-walled cell with a very basic toilet close by. A cell? But she’d been let out of the holding cell… and this didn’t look like Kamoshida’s castle dungeon either. There was something cooler to the light, something blue. She sat up and got further confused to realize she was in grungy striped prisoner clothes. Not only that, but there was a long chain between her wrists, and another one clamped onto an ankle. That one was secured to a hefty iron ball. What the hell was this? The cell she’d been in wasn’t this demeaning.

“Master, the prisoner has awakened,” a girl’s voice said, just out of sight past the barred door. Was that the one who’d warned her to be careful?

Chou took a better look outside her cell; it seemed like there was a ring of cells here, all circled around an open space that had a circular velvet carpet. Even weirder, a fancy wooden table was across from her cell. Someone was lounging lazily in the chair there; the table had an old ink well, feather pen, and stack of old books. The jail she’d been in had been simple and no-nonsense, none of this carpet and antique furnishing business… nor the hefty chains further keeping her cell door secure.

As she got up, two girls stepped into her view right outside the bars. They wore near identical blue uniforms, including mirrored black eyepatches marked with gold. They were near identical themselves, with yellow eyes and pale hair the color of old paper. “Look lively, Inmate,” the one on the right said sharply, tapping her baton into her palm. “Our master has brought you here to have a word with you. You had best heed his generosity!”

“Yes, welcome to my Velvet Room,” the old man at the table said with a voice so deep it could match the ocean. Once Chou got to the bars, she could see that the old man had very thin limbs and a very long nose. “This is a place between mind and matter, dreams and reality. I have called you here as my guest, as there is something vital that we must discuss.”

As he kept talking, Chou recognized it as the voice that invited her to the game. Then was this the one who made the Metaverse app? If it was, she didn’t like him already. “You’re a crappy host,” she said, taking one of the bars in hand. It was cold, unwelcoming like everything else here.

The girl on the right smacked her baton against the bars. “Don’t be disrespectful!”

Their master chuckled with smugness. “I’m not surprised you would think so, but be careful with hasty judgments like that. I’m quite surprised at the state of this room myself. My name is Igor; I have seen this room in many incarnations. The Velvet Room is a place that answers the needs of its guests. Therefore, the appearance it takes is a reflection of a guest’s heart. To think that such a prison would be within the heart of a girl like you… you truly are a prisoner of fate.”

Nonsense, she wasn’t cold and unwelcoming. But a prisoner of fate, that was something she could agree with. Her life had been torn completely out of her control since that night with the drunken lout. It was only in the past week that she could make some decisions for herself, aside from joining this game. In a way, she was lucky that that man had mistaken her for a boy. But then, her luck took bizarre turns all of her life.

“Nevertheless, we are here to do something about that fate,” Igor said. “You have awoken to your powers recently, after choosing to defy your fate by becoming a Trickster. On top of that, the power that awoke within you is that of the wild card. A Persona is the mask one wears to face the hardships of life; most people can only manifest one spirit as a Persona, as they maintain one persona within their life. However, a person who is a wild card can wear multiple masks to best fit the situation they are in. This is how you can manifest multiple spirits as Personas within you.”

“I thought everyone acted differently based on what situation they’re in,” Chou said. Like she knew this was a supernatural situation. Thus, she felt more willing to speak more openly about some things because they would accept the supernatural.

Igor nodded. “True, but that is not enough when it comes to Personas. A wild card like yourself is somewhat rare, far less than a one in twenty-two chance in truth.”

“That’s an odd number to specify,” Chou said.

“It’s a significant number,” the girl on the left said politely.

Igor waved to the two girls. “Yes, and forgive me for not introducing these two to you. The one of the left, Justine. The one on the right, Caroline. These two are wardens of this prison and their assistance will prove itself valuable to you. Of that, you can be sure.”

“Right, you’d better be grateful that we got assigned to you!” Caroline said, tapping her baton into her palm again.

“We wardens are here to protect the inmates,” Justine said, clutching a clipboard to her chest. “We are keeping watch over your development as well as being corroborators in your growth.”

“What do you mean?” Chou asked Justine.

She didn’t reply, but Igor did. “Their duties will be explained at a later point. You will be given access to this place now; come back when you have six Personas in your heart and they will instruct you then. For now, you have chosen to be active in the Game. Excellent. We shall clarify a few important matters tonight as you sleep.”

“Like what’s the point of this game?” she asked.

“That will become clear in due time,” he said. Annoying, but in line with what his app had done. “The stage for the game is all of Tokyo; the pieces for the game are all the citizens within Tokyo. Those of you chosen as players are to use all the pieces within the stage in accordance to the role and class you were assigned. The powers you are granted will guide your way.

“For you, the Trickster, the Fool… your call for power was answered by Arsene Lupin. A curious calling for a girl; an opposing gender for a first Persona is uncommon but not unheard of. Arsene is called the archetype gentleman thief for being the one to popularize the character type. He is a side of you who has emerged in response to your situation. You understand this much?”

“I don’t know him in particular, but I get it,” Chou said. Morgana had invited her to become a phantom thief, to steal the treasures of palaces which were in fact distorted desires inside people’s hearts. A gentleman thief sounded cool too, although she’d have to look up what that actually meant later on. And if Arsene came to her, it meant the ‘gentleman’ part didn’t exclude girls.

“Good, we appreciate a quick study,” Igor said. “As for the Game, it has been done before and will be done again. For this iteration, one condition has been made: you will be acting in the Metaverse alone instead of gathering associates to form a team. Teamwork is a powerful force that can end up as the winning factor in these games, sometimes the sole winning factor. We don’t want to have that influencing the flow of this Game.”

“So I have to work alone?” Chou asked, wondering about Morgana.

“Not completely alone,” Igor said. “You have come across a resident of the Metaverse who has offered her assistance. Despite how powerful teamwork can be, this resident has been deemed not powerful enough to be a decisive factor. What power and knowledge she has merely balances the disadvantages you have in entering late. She may work with you unless her assistance unbalances things more.

“Along with that, you have formed pacts with some Confidants already. Good, as you should. There are people in the city around you that have skills and knowledge that you lack; there are people who have been displaced within society just as you. Seek out those people and assist them to earn their assistance. That is another key to your progress as a Trickster.”

Justine spoke up then. “The strength of your Personas is determined by the strength of your heart. The strength of your heart is built through not only hardships, but also by the bonds you build with others. As a wild card, it is especially valuable to you to form and maintain bonds with other people. The more people you know, the greater your heart’s strength will be.”

“But that doesn’t mean you should be making lots of superficial relationships,” Caroline said. “You need real bonds of real partnerships. You need people willing to believe in you and your ideals no matter what may come. If all your friendships are shallow ones, then the power of your Personas will be equally shallow.”

At his table, Igor nodded. “You should be willing to even use myself towards such ends. After all, I am eager to see your progress within the Game, and towards your rehabilitation.”

That chime sounded again. “You mean my probation?”

“As you say,” Igor said. “A probation is for criminals who are willing to reform themselves, after all. You acted against the wishes of society and were condemned for it. Part of the Game, at least your participation in it, is your rehabilitation back into society and your rehabilitation of society itself.”

“I’m rehabilitating society?” It sounded bizarre. Although, society was crooked and unfair. She would love for things to change.

Igor nodded. “This world is full of distortion. People do not see things as they are; they ignore problems around them. The whole world needs to be rehabilitated, but we will begin here in Tokyo. Prove to the world that it can change. To that end, I will awaken your third eye so that you may see truths hidden by distortions. Use this skill well and it will show the way.”

“Thanks,” Chou said, feeling something new. Igor was dangerous and powerful. Actually, so were the girls. But their danger felt different from that of Igor. She couldn’t tell what the difference was, but it was there all the same.

“That is all for now,” Igor said. “Dedicate yourself to your rehabilitation and remember our words.”

“Now get back to whatever rest you can get,” Caroline said.

That was the last thing Chou knew of their meeting.

* * *

4/15

She got through the school day the same as before, although now she was hearing rumors that she’d done drugs, killed several people, or had been a prostitute. Because of the rumors, the other students didn’t dare speak to her. Chou ignored them as best she could. But by the time classes were over, she was tired of it all. Ryuji was hanging around in the halls looking bored, but Chou just wanted out of there. She headed out thinking that she could work at the flower shop.

But at Shibuya Station, she spotted Ann on her phone. “I told you already, I don’t feel like it,” Ann said, upset. “How can you call yourself a teacher when you…? Huh, Shiho? Um…”

What was this? Someone bumped into Chou when she slowed down; they didn’t apologize, but she was getting used to it. She stepped closer to Ann to keep out of the way. This didn’t seem like something to ignore.

“N-not today, really,” Ann said, then hung up. However, she crouched down and was shaking.

No one else was paying attention. Chou made sure to tap her foot where Ann should see it. “Hey, Ann?”

“Huh?” She got up startled; tears were in her eyes and her face was pale from realizing where she was. “O-oh, Chou, um…”

“Hey, you want to go somewhere quieter?” she asked. “Like a good place to eat inside?”

“Uh, sure?”

Since Ann seemed to be too upset to decide, Chou nodded and waved her to follow. But where? Recalling what she’d read about such matters… somewhere open and familiar, well-lit with a good view. There was a fast food joint over on Central Street, that should work. She made sure Ann stayed close to her and led her over to Big Bang Burger.

Chou got some drinks and fries for them to share, once Ann agreed that was fine. The booths had dividers, but that was fine; they weren’t large enough that someone could sneak up on them. When they sat down, Chou put her bag down on the neighboring chair and opened the flap up. “I hope you don’t mind my cat being here too,” she said, acting like bringing a cat to a restaurant was a normal thing.

“Huh?” Ann stared over as Morgana crawled out and looked across the table. “Wait, did you bring this cat to school?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Don’t tell the teachers, okay?”

“Uh, okay.” After a couple minutes, Ann said, “I’m sorry, but thank you. I usually don’t lose my composure like that.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

“How much did you overhear?” Ann asked, looking at her.

“Something about Shiho and a teacher,” she said, although she had her suspicions.

Ann sighed. “Yeah, it was Coach Kamoshida. You’ve probably heard the rumors by now, that we’re getting it on. But they’re completely false. Last semester, I did act nice to him, for Shiho’s sake. Shiho and Ryuji are my only friends at that rotten school, although Ryuji’s changed a lot since middle school. Not that I blame him; he got in on a track scholarship only to break his leg in the middle of the year. He avoided us for a while, but he’s coming back around. Anyhow, I want to support Shiho as best I can, even if it means tolerating Kamoshida’s attention.

“But on the first day of school this year, everyone was talking that he and I were seriously dating. It’s untrue, all of it. A little while later, he pressured me into going to a restaurant with him. He said that if I didn’t, he’d take Shiho off the starting line-up. They’re getting into their big tournaments now and if the girls team wins Nationals, it’d be a huge boost to her. So I agreed, even though he was slimy the whole time. I managed to get away with just dinner then.”

“Good thing, that sounds awful for you and Shiho,” Chou said.

“Yes, Kamoshida is a rotten man,” Morgana agreed, although Ann would only hear meows.

Ann nodded and gripped her napkin tight. “I… I hate him.” She spoke with a vitriol that seemed unlike her. “I want nothing to do with him. But if I don’t go along with what he says, then Shiho could be in trouble. She puts so much effort into volleyball; she must put up with a lot more being on the team under him. I want things to work out for her. If she makes it through Nationals, then she can quit the team. Being on a Nationals volleyball team should be enough to get her a college scholarship. That was Kamoshida on the phone just now, though. He told me to come over to his place; you know what that means.”

“He really shouldn’t be doing that,” she said.

“Yeah, and I’m not sure what to do about it,” Ann said. “I want to help Shiho, but this is too much.”

“I don’t think you should give in to him,” Chou said. She wanted to help now, but what should she say? “Although it is tough with a teacher. Like, try to not meet him alone. That counts for the both of you.”

“We could try that, but he is pushy. I’ll message her about it.” She had her phone out and quickly tapped out a text.

They discussed for a while longer about what could be done. Ann didn’t think reporting to the police would help, nor any of the staff. While Chou didn’t mention it, she was already thinking about raiding Kamoshida’s Palace once her headache stopped reoccurring. She should pick up some supplies, but what exactly would be useful?

Eventually, Ann looked back at Morgana and smiled. “You’re really bringing your cat to school, huh?”

“She’s clingy and would whine if I left her back where I’m staying,” Chou said, partly to tease Morgana.

“I would not whine,” Morgana insisted. “Though I would get bored.”

Ann laughed, maybe more than she normally would have since her mind was off Kamoshida a bit. “Well she is adorable, so I don’t blame you for keeping her close. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to the teachers about her. What’s her name?”

“Morgana,” Chou said, giving Morgana a little nudge under the table.

“What?” Morgana asked, looking at her.

“You could go over and help cheer Ann up,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Ann said, getting up. She did pet Morgana’s head as she went by. “I’m glad you were around, Chou. See you at school tomorrow.”

“Right, see you then,” she said. While Ann was heading out the door, Chou glanced around. It was still early for an evening rush, so there was only one other customer in. Because of that, she grabbed another fry and said, “Hey, I was thinking of getting some supplies for exploring the Palace. What do you think?”

“Good idea,” she said. “Medicines would be good; I have a few on hand, along with a few other things that might be hard to buy. I didn’t get hungry, but it might not hurt to have some drinks and snacks. Oh, and bobby pins for lockpicks! Those would be handy for some locked doors and chests.”

“I’m pretty sure I know where I can get the bobby pins,” Chou said, recalling a beauty supply shop that Ann had pointed out. “Medicines… actually, I heard about a doctor in Yongen-Jaya.”

“That would be convenient,” Morgana said. “Would they see you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. There’s odd rumors about her and she dresses like a punk, so she’s no normal doctor. But her medicines could help.” After all, Igor had mentioned that the people she would find support from were those who had trouble fitting in.

“No harm in checking this doctor out,” she said. “Especially to check up on your headaches, although that’s connected to the attack on your mind. Well let’s go pick up supplies.”

“I can’t get much, but I’ll see what I can buy.”

She was able to pick up a bag of bobby pins, mostly because they were cheap. A couple of drinks was all she felt comfortable buying for the moment, especially since it was too late now to work at the flower shop. At the convenience store, she spotted a cheap pocketknife with tools. That would be handy if things like the unscrewing the grate came up again. But it was one, too cheap to last, and two, still a bit much of an expense now. That would have to wait for another time. How should she get some more money to secure what she’d need for this game?

As she was heading back to the station, she spotted a crimson red door in an alleyway. It gave her a funny feeling. Had it been there before? The sign by the door said ‘Ender Electronics’. Feeling curious, Chou went inside to see what was up.

Morgana patted her back. “Hey, where’d we go? Something feels odd to my whiskers.”

“Not sure,” she whispered, glancing around.

It looked like a junk shop that was full of electronics: old computers, wires, odd devices, monitors, keyboards, outdated phones. At the back, there was a man in a bright red jacket working with a cluster of computers. As soon as Chou put eyes on him, she got reminded of Igor. This was someone dangerous and powerful, not human.

The man in the red jacket looked over when the door shut. “Ah, you saw the door,” he said, smiling in a way that didn’t seem right. “You’re one of the players in the game going on in this city, correct?”

“You know about that?” Chou asked. Meanwhile, Morgana put her paws on her shoulder to take a look.

“Of course,” he said, turning his chair around. “Normally I wouldn’t deal with you; you’re wearing the emblem of my rival.”

She was? She was wearing her school uniform, but what kind of adult would be into some high school rivalry? Something glittered by her collar… the butterfly pin. Perhaps that.

The guy with the red jacket shrugged. “The thing is, the one running this game is someone neither of us can stand. They even limited you on seeking allies for battle. To defy them, even if you are under his protection, I want to lend you a hand too.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it, Chou,” he said, still smiling. “You may call me Lars. Now, I’m offering you a chance to cheat your limitations. If you let me modify your Metaverse app, I’ll allow you to invite others to help you out in the Metaverse. Somewhat.”

“I don’t know about this,” Morgana said, sounding worried.

“I don’t blame you for being suspicious of me, little one,” Lars said.

“Huh, you can hear me?” Morgana asked, ducking closer to Chou’s shoulder.

Lars chuckled. Chou rubbed her head, feeling an ache again. “He’s not human.”

“Say what?” Morgana said; Chou felt her whiskers against her neck. “Ah! Um… wait, what the heck are you, Lars?”

“Someone you would have every right to be suspicious of,” Lars said, looking right to Morgana. “But look, the master of this game? They’ve already made some unexpected moves; some players have died or been hit by mental shutdowns. I hate to admit it, but the one running this game is a valid threat even to me. They’re a threat to all you humans, and you little one, and my rival too. They shouldn’t be, but they are and I will not stand for that.”

“He could have a point,” Chou said, glancing over at Morgana. “I mean, the so-called tutorial could’ve killed me. And you said that master threw me into an abyss that could drive mortals insane. If they’re doing that much right out the gate, why not cheat them at their game?”

“This is to our mutual benefit, all of us,” Lars said. “So what do you say to a little extra edge? It’s nothing more than a tool really, one which she decides what to do with.”

“What kind of tool are you talking about?” Morgana said. Good, at least she was hearing him out.

“An modification to that phone app to get around the teammate restriction,” Lars said. “I suspect that one reason behind why you’re not being allowed battle allies is so that you don’t get the capacity to challenge the Game Master directly. Now I know a human can attain that level of power; it’ll be slower when it’s just the pair of you, but it’s possible. I’ve seen humans do incredible things. Especially one such as you, a Trickster through and through if I ever saw one.

“To help you with defying your Game Master, I will allow you to recruit temporary allies. Permanent allies would be something they could call you out on in a heartbeat. But temporary ones, not so much. Your guest allies will be in a state of dreaming when you invite them and awaken their Persona.”

“Wait, we’d help them awaken their Persona?” Morgana asked in surprise. “That’s weird.”

Lars nodded. “Why not? It’ll be easier on them to deal with a Persona awakening while asleep. They could be awakened by myself or my rival; I suppose that’s a risk if you feel it to be.”

The butterfly pin glittered again. A risk that whoever this was would awaken Personas… unless the pin was enough to ensure that the silent one she’d encountered would be the one to do so.

Shrugging, Lars went on explaining. “Your guests will recall the adventures as a dream: indistinct, uncertain, but they’ll recall something. It will even change them if you do things right. At first, they will have greater powers than you. As they are in a dream state, their Personas will be expressed with less conscious filtering. But as long as you’re diligent with your own training and using your abilities as a wild card, you’ll be capable of greater things than a dreamer.”

Inviting guests could allow Kamoshida’s actual victims like Ann, Shiho, Ryuji, and even Yuuki to fight against him. That felt more fitting than just her stealing his desires to change him. “That sounds pretty good to me,” Chou said.

“Hmm, I guess it could get rough if it’s just you and me,” Morgana said. “I still don’t trust you, though!”

“And I still don’t like you,” Lars said bluntly. “But we’re both around to help the Trickster, aren’t we? Could we tolerate each other for that much?”

“Uh, I guess,” Morgana said, still sounding wary.

“Good,” he said, his weird smile coming back. “Then what’s your decision? Do you want my app update that allows you to call upon guest allies?”

“What’s it going to cost?” Chou asked.

“This one? Nothing. Now if you want further cheats, or electronics that work properly within the Metaverse, those may cost you. But we’ll consider this my opening bet in your potential. Should you fully use the bets placed upon you, mine and that of my rival, you could win against the one making the house rules. It’s something we’re all after.”

“I don’t like being a pawn,” Chou said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Then make yourself not one,” Lars said, amused now.

“Fine, I will,” she said. “I’ll go ahead and take your app update. It’ll give people a chance to strike back against their oppressors.”

“Spoken like a true Trickster,” Lars said, snapping his fingers. “And you’ve got it. Next time you start up the app, there’ll be a new menu to invite guests. Have fun with it. Oh, and if you’d like to start on your path of vengeance sooner, I’d recommend heading out right now and hurrying to catch the next train home. That should give you time for one more meeting.”

“Sure, thanks,” Chou said, heading out the door and straight to the train. It was getting late.

“I hope that was the right decision, trusting that guy,” Morgana said once they were shut into the train to head to Yongen-Jaya. “Looking at him gave me the willies and I don’t know why. But, I dunno. I just have this feeling like he might’ve been somewhat honest with us there, that this update is to our mutual benefit.”

“Just have to be careful and hope he didn’t slip some malware in too,” Chou whispered into her bag, hoping others didn’t spot her doing so. After a moment, she got a sense for what the other passengers were paying attention to. It was chaotic and more pressure on her mind, but it seemed like they had other things on their minds.

Back in Yongen-Jaya, Chou turned her attention to the doctor that was supposed to be around here. She closed her eyes and tried using Third Eye. It gave her a mental map of the neighborhood, even places she’d not gone. And from there… the clinic was around the left turn just ahead.

A sign near two green doors noted that it was the Takemi Clinic of Internal Medicine. And the hours… “This place is only open for fifteen more minutes,” Chou said quietly.

“Huh, what place?” Morgana asked, popping her head out to read the sign. “Oh, for that doctor… hey wait! So if you hadn’t caught that train, you wouldn’t have gotten here in time to go in?”

“Seems like it,” she said. “Sorry, but do you mind waiting out here? I don’t know how a clinic would take a visiting cat.”

“That’s fine,” Morgana said, hopping right up onto her shoulder and down to the ground. “I’ll meet you back over by Leblanc, all right?”

“Sure thing.” With that, Chou headed inside and hoped this would work.

* * *

Supplies… decent, some things needed but those were easily ordered. It was a pain to have to do this kind of thing herself now. But that was the price of freedom, right? She had to rely entirely on herself. Lots of work to remain in business… technically she could use some patients to prove that she was acting as the general practitioner she was registered as.

Right as Tae thought that, someone walked right in. Tae glanced down at the small clock on her desk. Fifteen minutes to closing time. Cutting it close, and it was a teenage girl who seemed faintly familiar. Maybe she lived around here and had heard rumors. That would be a pain; she didn’t want to become known as that kind of doctor. But she needed some kind of patient.

“Welcome,” Tae said, looking up at her face. “Oh… you’re the girl who’s living at the cafe.”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m Chou Amamiya. Do you take walk-ins?”

“Sure,” she said, although she needed to gauge her real purposes here. “What brings you to seek a doctor?”

“I’ve had a persistent headache for three days now,” Chou said, her eyes unfocusing a bit; her head must hurt at the moment.

“All right, head back into the exam room,” Tae said, getting a clipboard with a new patient form.

The girl was new to Tokyo; a question proved that she’d come from a small town. The drastic environment change and stress was an obvious source of a persistent headache. Although, there was an odd symptom that she described: the pain was sharp in a line across both halves of her head. She described it like a deep claw cut. It reminded Tae of something. But could it really be that? Should she bother?

Her old friend would bug her if she didn’t. Tae opened up a drawer of her desk and searched for a small box there. It was under some papers since she didn’t pull it out often, a crystal of unusual origins on a thin chain. “Here, hold the end of the chain.”

Chou nodded and did as asked. Tae made sure the chain was still, then let go. After a mere second, the crystal began to swing in a steady circle. Normally such a pendulum would swing in a line in response to a person’s pulse. The crystal also sparkled in a way that had nothing to do with lighting. If she knew more, she could interpret how it moved and shone.

“Are you a Persona user?” Tae asked. If she wasn’t, it could be brushed off as a joke.

“Yes,” she said, looking at her in surprise. “You know about that?”

She nodded. “Most people don’t, or they’ve forgotten what they believed in when they were young. Have you awakened your Persona recently?”

“Yes, while I had the initial headache,” she answered. A few more questions got her to admit that something had gone wrong and an unknown force had attacked her. That was a clearer source of her headache.

“So this Metaverse is a type of dream?” Tae asked. “Exploring that kind of territory is dangerous, I hope you realize. You’re lucky that didn’t wipe your mind out. Do you have a guide to that other world? Or other Persona users teaching you?”

“I have a guide, but it’s just the two of us,” Chou said.

“Have they said something about these headaches?”

Chou nodded. “She said my mental defense was compromised because of the attack.”

Was this worth it? She wanted to focus on developing her medicine. But then, healing a Persona user… it’d be unusual situations, perhaps with insights she wouldn’t get from another patient. And she did need some regular patients. An irregular one might just do.

“Give me a couple of minutes,” Tae said, turning to the computer.

Although the supernatural wasn’t broadly accepted in the scientific community, there was an online database for conditions related to supernatural conditions and powers. It had large sections about Persona users. Referencing her symptoms and the conditions of the injury… it looked like this would take more research. But there were some things to start with, some medicines she could use. She went off to mix something up.

As she came back into the exam room, Tae said, “Your guide would have the best measure of your condition, but you shouldn’t be going into this Metaverse like this. I did find some things to help you out. Here; take 20 milliliters of this in the evening for tonight and over the next four evenings. It should help repair the damage. Also, this,” she brought up a window on the computer with a picture of a multivitamin, “you should go to a pharmacy and look for this brand of supplements. It’ll be more expensive than most, but it would be worth it if you pursue working with your Persona. The mental supplement would be best at first.”

“All right,” Chou said, then rubbed her head. “Sorry, but I’m really short on cash now. Could I pay you another time?”

“Fine, as long as you pay in time,” Tae said. “I’m going to have the clinic closed over the weekend, but I would like to check back with you. Would you be able to come in after school on the 22nd, next Friday?”

“Sure, I will.”

Not exactly the kind of patient she thought she’d be looking after. But, it’d at least be interesting.

* * *

‘I visited Dr. Takemi because she’s local and got an explanation for my headaches. It’s a combination of moving to a big city and stress from school. So they should get better as my body gets used to this place. Though, there’s not a lot I can do about stress at school right now other than hope these rumors die off and get replaced with some other gossip.

‘Other than that, it was a normal day.’


	7. Ten of Swords

4/16

A spirited whistling filled the tiny apartment. A knife brightly reflected the light over the unfolded counter, slicing through a carrot. In the mind’s eye, the knife sliced through someone else. Everyone had rot and distortion; injustice was everywhere. But rot could be sliced out of place. The distortion was a sign…

“Full of passengers, the bus drove straight through on-coming traffic for several miles before crashing into another bus,” the morning newscaster reported from the television nearby. “The police have added it to a growing number of suspicious accidents throughout the city…”

“You’ll say it was the stress of overwork, added onto widespread depression caused by pressure from higher up in the company.” The knife sliced through the air a bit. It would be neat to twirl it, but it was an exquisitely sharp knife. “Ultimately caused by pressures from the Minister of Transport to keep overhead costs as low as possible; this will force him to quit. That’s what the media will begin reporting soon. What they won’t be reporting is a precise cutting out of rot from the drivers themselves, leaving them vulnerable to implanted orders and carefully timed triggers.”

The whistling was replace by laughter.

“There is none left to oppose me. Just need to raise you up the last steps to mercilessly cut you down.”

* * *

Chou was feeling better as she headed towards Shujin Academy. Sure, the rumors would still be around. But the dull headache she’d been enduring was clearing up. Morgana thought she should wait until Monday at least before going back into the Palace. But that was fine. She could hang out with one of her new friends or work at the flower shop. Tomorrow, she had the day to herself and could see about packing some books over to the old book stores she’d been told about. That was exciting, although she’d have to hold herself back with buying books until she could pay back Dr. Takemi. And afford that multivitamin, maybe look for a decent pocketknife…

A girl hurried by her and grabbed the arm of another just ahead. “Hey, good morning! I read about something crazy online last night, you gotta hear about it!”

“Morning,” her friend said, smiling back. “What is it this time? More weird occult stuff like the mental shutdowns?”

“This might be a huge break into what triggers them.” She pulled out her phone. “People are saying that if you send an email to yourself on your phone with someone’s name and how they wronged you, the message suddenly disappears!”

“Why would anyone message themselves about something like that?”

“I dunno, maybe it was someone weird who takes notes like that? People have tried it and say that it really does vanish! And maybe, there’s a vengeful ghost out there who’s collecting such messages with the intent of making those people pay.”

“Ghosts again?”

“But that could be how these mental shutdowns are happening!”

“Uh, did you try it?”

“N-not yet, but I was thinking about it.”

That was a weird urban legend. But in this case, it might just be a legend. “Morgana, what’re you going to do for today?” Chou asked quietly.

“Mind if I listen in on your classes?” Morgana asked from the bag. “I’m sure I could fit into one of those desks; seems snug and cozy to me.”

“I don’t know about it being cozy,” she said, since the cubby under the desk was metal. “But sure, just keep quiet.”

One of the teachers was at the stairs, a serious look on his face. “Head straight for your homerooms today and keep calm,” he said.

“Did something happen?” one of the girls ahead asked.

“Don’t mind that, just follow instructions,” the teacher said, then repeated it for those just now approaching.

Due to that, there weren’t any students hanging around the halls. Those who were heading to class were all buzzing about why they were being told to do so today. Chou listened around but nothing got explained until she was in her classroom heading for her desk. “Did somebody really hang themselves in the gym?” one of the boys said.

“Well they tried, but I didn’t hear if they died or not,” the other boy talking to the group said. “They sent everyone away even though the basketball and volleyball teams were both at practice in there.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t that long ago, actually.”

“Did anyone get pictures?”

Someone tried to hang themselves in the gym? It sounded awful, but she only knew a few people here. At her desk, Chou set the bag down gently and opened up the flap so Morgana could hop up into the desk. She started to look around, but then an envelope inside her desk caught her eye. A note, maybe? Probably someone who wanted to bother her without identifying themselves. She took it more to get it out of Morgana’s way.

“What’s that?” Morgana asked, darting into the cubby in a black flash.

Chou shrugged and sat in her chair, checking the writing on the envelope. It was addressed to her, from… Yuuki Mishima? Looking across the room, she noticed that Yuuki’s desk was empty. He didn’t seem to be in the room. Was it him? Feeling a chill, she opened up the envelope to take out the note.

‘Amamiya-san: I need to apologize formally to you. Before you came, Coach Kamoshida ordered me to let the whole school know about your criminal record. He only gave me your last name and thought you were a guy. But even when I figured out that you were a girl, I posted about it anonymously on the school message board. I’m really sorry about all this; I was intimidated to hear about you coming, but more intimidated by Kamoshida. I didn’t want to give him any reason to beat me more or kick me off the team, or even expel me.

You’ve surprised me this week, though. It feels like every time I’ve run into you, you were concerned about me and seemed like you wanted to help, even if you had no idea what was going on. At first, I was afraid you found me out and was trying to trick me for revenge. But I’m not so sure that you’re like that now. Everyone looks down on me or acts like I don’t exist. You’re strange because you don’t. I wish I could take back that post, but it got reposted and everyone’s talking about it, taking it far out of proportion compared to what I first wrote.

I shouldn’t be surprised, since I am a total zero who shouldn’t be at a place like Shujin. I nearly did something cool today, or yesterday. I’m not sure how long it’s been that I’ve been in the school now; it feels like forever. But, Kamoshida told me to send Shiho to his office. He’ll do that, call one of us out of practice, oftentimes me, and take out his frustrations on us. He talks sleazily to the girls on the team too, groping them in practice and forcing them into dates. He’s been particularly strong towards Shiho and her friend Ann lately, claiming they both belong to him. When Shiho asked if I’d go with her so she wasn’t alone with him, I was scared but did it. She got upset at some point and ran out, and Kamoshida beat the hell out of me for letting her get away from him.

I might’ve passed out, I’m not sure. But he’s right, I have no worth outside the team and I’m less than shit there. My parents tell me to ignore all the pain and endure it if I want a good future; all the other parents are like that too, I’ve heard them. We’re lucky we’ve got someone as talented as Kamoshida teaching us. But I can’t take this anymore. I really don’t belong and there’s nothing I can do now. Well, except for apologize to Chou now. There’s something weird about her being a criminal and the only person who’s been nice to me lately. It’s something I can do, but then there’s nothing.

I’m sorry, I won’t be a bother anymore. Yuuki Mishima’

“All right, everyone to your seats,” Ms. Kawakami said as she closed the door behind her.

What now? And what about Shiho? Chou tapped the back of Ann’s chair. “Hey, Ann?”

“Hmm?” Since class hadn’t quite started, she turned around to look at her. “What’s up?”

Leaning froward and trying not to draw attention, she said, “Yuuki’s not here, but I got a note from him.”

“Huh?” She had some concern on her face, but it was clear that she didn’t know him well.

“He and Shiho had a bad encounter with Coach Kamoshida yesterday, late after school,” Chou said. “Have you seen her this morning?”

That made her more worried. “No, I’ll check up on her.” Ann turned back around and got her phone out to message Shiho.

“There is a commotion going on, but little has been confirmed about things yet,” Ms. Kawakami said to the class, quieting them down. “I’m sure an announcement will be made when things are certain, so focus on your studies for today.”

Later on during homeroom, when there was a moment, Ann turned back to her. “She seems upset, but she’s in class. I told her we would meet up for lunch.”

“Sure thing,” Chou whispered back.

“I hope your friend’s okay,” Morgana whispered from the desk.

When lunch time came around, Chou sent Ann ahead to the courtyard. She’d taken a picture of Yuuki’s note so that she had a copy of it, making sure to put it into a protected file to protect him. With that done, Chou brought the note over to the faculty office. Morgana traveled with her in the bag. Hopefully the amusement of a cat at school would work a second time.

Kawakami was in the office, thankfully. Chou wasn’t sure about dealing with the other teachers yet. “Excuse me, but I thought I should turn this in,” she said, offering the note. “Mishimi-san tried writing me an apology but wrote a suicide note instead.”

“Really?” Kawakami said, surprised and concerned. She took the note and read it over, her eyebrows furrowing at points. “This is his handwriting… but really, Kamoshida? I’ve noticed Mishima and other volleyball players with bad injuries, but they say it’s accidents during training. Is this really going on?”

“I know I’ve only been here a week, but it looks suspicious to me,” Chou said. “I’ve made friends with Ann and Shiho, but they’ve both been unhappy. And Shiho seems to be upset today; I’m going to meet up with her and Ann soon.”

“Hmm… this seems worth looking into. Sorry, but I’m going to have to keep this note in case those investigating it need it. But…” she looked up at her, “since you already got this, I’ll let you in on it: Mishima tried to hang himself in the boys’ locker room of the gym. Fortunately he was found and freed before he died; he was unconscious when he got to the hospital. Be careful who you tell this too, especially with Kamoshida involved. Even though he’s relatively new, Kamoshida holds a lot of sway with the rest of the faculty. Plus we don’t want too much of a panic spreading through the students.”

That wasn’t right. But Chou had other means to do something about this. “I don’t like that, but all right.”

Kawakami then got a form from a folder nearby. “Also, they haven’t asked directly, but I have a hunch… here, I can give passes to Ann and Shiho if the latter really is too upset to focus on school right now. I can’t do the same for you since you don’t have much leeway and the others would be suspicious if I gave you leave too.”

Chou smiled and accepted the passes. “That’s fine, this should help them.”

The teacher smiled back. “Good, and let them know they can talk to me if they need some help. I’ll see what I can do over the weekend too, but I’m afraid I can’t promise much. It all depends on who’s willing to protect Kamoshida and who isn’t. Wish it wasn’t that way, but unfortunately it is.”

“I’ll let them know you’re on their side.”

Over in the courtyard, there weren’t as many students as usual. But Ann and Shiho were there, the latter in tears. Ann nodded as Chou sat down, but stayed quiet since Shiho was too upset. Ryuji was there as well, watching in concern and uncertainty. Opening up her bag, Chou leaned over and whispered, “Would you be a nice kitty for the crying girl?”

“I’m not a cat!” Morgana protested, hopping out of the bag. “But I’m not cold either. Just know that I won’t always do this.” She went closer to Shiho. “I dunno what you’re going through, miss, but you surely don’t deserve this.”

“Huh, a cat?” Shiho asked, startled.

“Morgana’s my cat,” Chou said. “Just don’t tell anybody she’s here.”

Ryuji chuckled. “Heh, you’ve got some guts bringing your pet to school.”

“Only cause we’re partners,” Morgana said.

“She’s a smart cat, listened to me yesterday with Chou,” Ann said with a smile. “We’re all here for you, Shiho.”

When Morgana came closer, Shiho petted her. “Thanks,” she said, severely dispirited. “But this is terrible and it’s all my fault for running away. Ann said Yuuki wasn’t in class today; he was the one I didn’t see when the teams got called out, so it had to be him. He died because of me.”

“He’s not dead,” Chou said. “He’s in the hospital being taken care of. And it’s not your fault for defending yourself.”

“Right, it’s that asshole coach’s fault,” Ryuji said, then hit his leg. “Dammit, I wish I could do something about him! But he’s been looking for an excuse to expel me, I know it.”

“Sometimes to be defiant, we have to be better people than others expect,” Chou said. At least in their sights.

Ann laughed at that, part amused and part making herself to cheer up Shiho. “I wouldn’t have thought of that, but yeah, sounds good.”

“So Yuuki could be okay?” Shiho asked.

“Sure, we hope so,” Ann said.

“His head might be a mess, but he’s got another chance,” Ryuji said. “So don’t blame yourself, Shiho, nor you Ann.”

“Maybe, but what do we do?” Shiho said, looking down as she kept petting Morgana. The cat was now lying with her front paws in Shiho’s lap, purring in encouragement. “Um, I get scared to come to school now. But the whole reason I came to Shujin was because of the volleyball team. I tried to tell my parents about it, but they just lectured me about hard work and toughing things through. I guess I’m just not good enough…”

“Well if you aren’t, I’m the same way,” Ann said. “There’s not a lot we can do.”

“Ms. Kawakami is on your side because of what Yuuki wrote,” Chou said, taking out the passes from her blazer’s pocket. “And, ta-dah! She’s letting you two off for the rest of the day to figure out what to do.”

“Oo, that’s nice of her,” Ann said, taking them. “Come on, we should be able to catch your mother at home, right? We’ll talk to her again.”

“Maybe,” Shiho said, unsure of it. “We’ll try…”

Chou wished she could refer Shiho and Ann to a proper counselor. Or heck, the whole team could use the help. But that wasn’t something she could do. “So when do you guys want to set up math tutoring sessions?” she asked instead. Schedules were good, right? Set simple expectations and be positive.

“Huh?” Shiho asked.

“What about math now?” Ryuji asked.

“You did suggest it,” Chou said, looking at Ann.

“Oh yeah,” Ann said. “It couldn’t hurt to start. Did you want us to pay you?”

“Nah, you’re friends,” Chou said. “Though you could show me more places around the city, especially good spots to eat.”

“There’s loads of places to eat,” Ryuji said, smiling at the idea. “But to find the good spots, yeah, we know some.”

Shiho nodded. “Um, what about Tuesdays after school? Maybe Saturday too, if there’s no matches those days.”

“That’s fine by me,” Chou said.

Ryuji rubbed his head. “Well math fries my brain, but who knows? I’ll try it out a few times.”

“I think any improvement would be good for us,” Ann said, still trying to be positive. “We shall face the beast of math with all of our courage!”

Fortunately, that made Shiho briefly giggle. It was clear that there was still a lot weighing down her mind. But this was progress. Hopefully her parents started listening to her.

* * *

There was no way he could admit it, to anyone, but today was a thrilling day. Taking someone’s fate into his hands and utterly crushing it until they were so mortified that they chose death over continuing a worthless existence… hah, if he thought that was rough, Mishima was just as weak as Suguru had pegged him last year. He didn’t know true suffering for one’s sport; he wasn’t strong enough to be a star. Suguru kept quiet at the principal’s request, but couldn’t help raising his head high. This school didn’t deserve someone as powerful and beloved as him, but he’d bless them with his presence and make the most of things.

It was almost disappointing that the boy had survived his attempted escape. Almost, but then just wait until he showed his face around school again. Then Suguru could let everyone know about his foolishness and make him wish that he’d succeeded. The boy’s fate, crushed as it was, was still in his hands.

Although, Ann and Shiho were teasing him by holding out. Those two girls were wicked ones. They clearly wanted his love from how they’d both approached him. But as was usual with girls, they kept trying to get more and more out of him without giving back. Suguru had seen this time and time again; there had been girls in his own school days that had swindled him out of time and money, not sleeping with him until he resorted to strong-arming them into it. If people would give up telling girls to be modest and careful, if those girls would submit to what men wanted out of them, a lot of what was messed up with the world would be resolved right away.

He was clearly going to have to use stronger tactics against those girls. Perhaps get them both at once? That would be magnificent…

A question out of the math teacher snapped Suguru out of his thoughts, bringing him back to the lounge where several of the teachers were eating lunch away from students. “How’s the girl on probation been for you?”

“I’m glad I don’t have to deal with her directly,” Suguru said, maintaining his stance. It had been a surprise to hear that the criminal was actually a girl. While he wanted to see how she was in person better, he didn’t want to look wishy-washy. “What’s having a criminal like that supposed to do for the school’s reputation?”

“It’s supposed to show that we can be a positive influence on even troubled students,” another teacher said.

“Easy for you to say when you don’t have to deal with Amamiya,” the social studies teacher Ushimaru said. “She stares out the window daydreaming or doodles in her notes during class, bored and defiant. She’s hardly lady-like.”

“She might look bored because we’re not challenging her,” the math teacher said.

“Wh-what?” the social studies teacher asked. Suguru raised an eyebrow at such a ridiculous statement.

But she nodded and seemed confidant in it. “I honestly wish that we’d scouted her out before she got on probation; maybe that would’ve kept her out of trouble. The other day, I was giving a lecture on order of operations by starting with a complicated formula on the chalkboard. About half the students had their eyes glaze over as usual, but once Amamiya actually looked at the problem, she gave the correct answer in a few seconds. I didn’t expect any of them to be able to do that before I explained anything! So I let her doodle for the rest of class since she clearly knew the process already.”

“She probably solved it on her phone while you didn’t realize it,” Suguru said.

“No, I believe Amamiya could do that,” Ms. Kawakami said. “She acts similarly unchallenged in my classes, and I spotted her reading a book about psychology earlier today. It was one I recognized from college. Other than habitually staring out the window, she’s been well behaved.”

“Right, she could’ve been a stellar student if she started here,” the math teacher said.

That was strange. The conversation came back into his mind after classes had ended, when he spotted the transfer student in the halls. She had an intentionally messy style with her black hair barely not covering up her face; some curls touched her shoulders and some fell past. If it wasn’t for the skirt, he’d think she was some pretty boy with shiny glasses. Why did girls try to look like that? It wasn’t attractive. Maybe if the blazer wasn’t hiding her chest, and if her hair was longer and in better shape, and if she was taught about make-up and clothes, then she’d be quite tempting to take for his own.

Hmm… maybe it would be worth it to groom her into something worthy of him. Her criminal record would be useful leverage, as long as it didn’t make her overly defiant. She’d have to be broken into obedience at any rate. But, she did have potential…

By the time he decided she might be worth pursuing, she’d left the hall. All well. That just gave him more time to plan out how to snare her. In the meantime, if Ann and Shiho were ignoring him, perhaps another girl could be used to pass time with.

* * *

Shiho felt numb, from all the crying and worrying and fright that she’d been through the past couple of days. She kept recalling that meeting with Kamoshida yesterday. Following some advice from Ann, she asked Yuuki to come with her so she wasn’t alone with the coach. That seemed reasonable, having a guy around to stave off the coach’s advances. But it didn’t work, not after Yuuki got knocked into the wall for refusing to leave. Then he made his intentions with her all too clear, denying her any chance to say no. He’d put a tear in her shirt by the time Yuuki managed to get to his feet again. If she didn’t have that chance to run, he would have had his way with her.

She hadn’t been thinking at that point, just running. There had been a bit of hope that Yuuki took the hint and ran too. Unfortunately, it seemed he hadn’t and now her teammate had tried to kill himself. She didn’t know Yuuki all that well, not really. He kept to himself and didn’t have much confidence. What should she have done? Kamoshida had already said it was her fault in a text; her mother had suggested blocking his number. Shiho wanted to do that, but she knew she’d get yelled at later if she did.

However… she felt odd too. Like it should have been her in Yuuki’s position. She wasn’t sure if she’d go for hanging herself, but she could have died today. And there was Kamoshida’s sneaking voice in her head suggesting that she should, for being a worthless cowardly bitch who was only good out on the court. He kept saying that she ought to prove she was good for something in bed instead, or else she was a waste of space. His voice had been in there for weeks.

But now she had other voices to listen to. Ann kept trying to make her smile. She apologized for not being able to do much; Kamoshida was coaxing her all the same, pushing her to do more for him. However, she’d decided to not give in. A big part of that decision was Ryuji and Chou’s support. Ryuji was acting more like his old self, concerned about them. They barely knew Chou, but she acted positive and certain. She also wasn’t involved in any of this; it was reassuring to have someone outside everything decide that the whole situation was wrong.

What would they do when they had to go back to school? Her mother seemed to be taking this more seriously, but she had complained about wasting the effort they’d taken to get her into Shujin. Was she going to make her go back? What would she do?

“Hey, Shiho,” someone said near her.

She nearly stumbled at hearing her name called. But the person caught her arm; it was Chou, looking concerned. “Oh, h-hello Chou. Sorry, I didn’t notice you there.”

Chou shrugged. “It’s fine, but where’s Ann? I thought you two were hanging out today.”

Reminded of that, Shiho glanced around. They were in Shibuya Station. “Yeah, we were at my place talking with my mom, but then her agency called her in to a replacement job. It was a last-minute thing and they really needed her help, so I said it was okay. Then Mom had things to do, and I couldn’t focus or sit still, so I went for a walk. I should’ve paid attention to where I ended up, I’m sorry. What are you doing here?”

“I went to Jinbocho to sell some old books,” she said, holding up a large paper bag covered in paw prints. Then she glanced at a clock. “I think I can make another trip out there today, but looks like I’ll need another day to get this done. But if you want, I can walk with you to your home. You don’t seem well.”

Shiho shook her head. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.” Though it was nice that she worried. “Um, do you want some help with selling your books? I don’t have anything else I’m doing right now.”

“If you want to, thanks,” Chou said. “But we need to catch the train back to Yongen-Jaya now. Let’s go.”

She nodded and followed along. It was something to do, perhaps to keep her from thinking too much. As she’d not been to Yongen-Jaya, she wasn’t sure what to expect. The streets were narrow, enough that someone coming by on a bike meant they had to move aside. Then Chou brought her into a coffee shop of all places. It had a look like it had been there forever with a owner who consistently took good care of it. While she hadn’t drank coffee before, the cafe smelled wonderful. The owner raised an eyebrow on seeing them come in, but was busy at work. They headed upstairs.

The room Chou was staying in was like the shop below it, but with less care given to it. There were piles of unused stuff around, including a lot of bags that used to hold coffee beans. As for the books, she’d been talking about stacks of large books that had varying degrees of dust on them. Actually, everything had varying degrees of dust in here. There was a pile of cleaning supplies on a desk nearby, so she must have been trying to clean things.

“It’s so dusty in here,” Shiho said, after sneezing.

“It was worse when I got here,” Chou said, filling up the paper bag. “I’m clearing the dust every few days and it still comes back.”

“After seeing this, I don’t think I’ll complain about cleaning around my room anymore,” Shiho said. Chou laughed at that.

It would be nice to be like that, happy even though there was work ahead. Shiho wanted to try; she’d been like that once. “But it’s nice in a way too. I mean, you’re living on your own in an old attic above a retro coffee shop. It sounds like something an artist would do, or someone else who’ll follow their passion over just earning money. Plus it smells wonderful downstairs; it could be the same up here once you banish the dust.”

“Nah, life is a never ending battle against dust, or so my father says,” Chou said. It made Shiho chuckle, as well as wish again that she could be more like Chou. Maybe by studying with her, even if it was math, she could learn how to have that kind of confidence.

Going out to sell the books meant taking the train quite a way across Tokyo. Shiho had never been to Jinbocho either, nor had she spent much time in a bookstore. It hadn’t seemed very interesting. Couldn’t you find most books easier online anyhow? But Chou was eager to be there, wanting to browse everything from manga to old literature. She was different from people Shiho knew, although admittedly that was mostly other athletes who didn’t like sitting still long enough to read a book.

The owner of the store they went to was surprised to see Chou back, but he patiently went through the lot, separating them into books that went with his store and books that he could sell to other stores. Feeling out of place, Shiho said, “You had a lot of books, but it’s just a drop to everything here.”

“I’ve got a lot more upstairs,” the owner said, proud of it.

“It’s like a treasure trove in here,” Chou said happily, staying by the counter to help the owner with the sale. “I could spend hours looking over everything to find books I’d like to read. Any bookworm could, although I might be odd even among them since I like reading textbooks too.” She sighed and shook her head. “Although that makes classes boring.”

“That’s impressive,” Shiho said with a smile. “My family never reads much, so I wouldn’t know where to start in a place like this. But sometimes I see people completely lost in a book like a TV show and think that it might be nice.”

“It is,” she agreed. “You want to try one? What kind of shows or movies are you into?”

“Well, I usually like shows with characters who use magic,” she said, not sure she wanted to admit that some of those shows were meant for kids.

“You can start with a fantasy book,” Chou said. “Or maybe sci-fi because some of them do stuff that seems like magic. I know some good ones.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,” Shiho said. Taking her mind off things seemed good.

“Those would be over in that corner, and the shelf next to it,” the owner said, pointing out the area.

“Thank you, I’ll take a look.”

She could take a look, but she really wasn’t sure what books would be interesting. It’d be a waste if she bought something and then didn’t like it. Although, these books didn’t cost much. Some had blank covers with just a title; others had art on the cover, of dragons, demons, heroes, fanciful landscapes… there was a group with the label ‘Old Tales Told Anew’, including one of Princess Kaguya. Wasn’t that a famous old story? She’d seen it referenced in some shows she liked, but they hadn’t told the story itself.

“Find something?” Chou asked, coming over. She seemed to be done with the sale.

“Yeah, I keep seeing bits of this story but not the whole thing,” Shiho said, showing her the book.

“That’s a good series,” she said. “They don’t just tell the stories; they also include essays in the back that discuss cultures of the time and references that are mostly forgotten. If you read this, you’ve got Classical Literature, Language, History, and Social Studies covered.”

“That sounds efficient,” she said, not having thought of it that way. “All right, I think I’ll buy this and give it a try.”

“I hope you like it,” Chou said, looking over the fantasy books herself. “Ah man, it’s so hard to resist, even though I bought a book recently. But there’s some things I need to buy… oh wait, they have a copy of that?” She took a book from a different section to look at.

“What’s that one?” Shiho asked.

“It’s a German book, so you don’t find it often in Japanese,” she explained, showing her the copy of ‘The Neverending Story’. “But I borrowed it so much from the school library back in middle school, it’s really good. I wasn’t able to get a copy myself.” Then she smiled. “See, it’s like finding a treasure that you’re not sure if you’ll see again for a long time, especially with out-of-print books. I guess I could afford one more now.”

Shiho found herself chuckling at that. “I know the feeling, when finding a CD for a band that hasn’t done anything for a while.”

That evening, she had to discuss with both of her parents more honestly about what was going on. It scared her, but the thoughts of her friends let her start. Even with that talk, Shiho found some time to start reading the Kaguya book. Classical Literature had always seemed like a boring subject. But in reading this one on her own, it was interesting to picture what was going on in her mind. There were old illustrations in the book too, from various ages and artists. If she started with those images and then put them into motion in her head… a couple of hours managed to pass her by without Shiho realizing it.


	8. Untouchable

4/17

Yesterday, Chou had brought a school friend into Leblanc. It was unusual. Mostly Futaba saw older adults from around the neighborhood come in as customers, enough that she might recognize a few if she ran into them. Not that she’d go outside where they were. These people might be bad, or they might hate her too. Sojiro said that he’d moved over here to get away from her family, so she shouldn’t encounter them again. But what if she did? Futuba didn’t want to risk it.

The other girl must be one of Chou’s school friends. But she’d just moved here a week ago. How’d she get friends so quickly? Friendship was a mystery with unknown requirements. In games, it wasn’t that bad: get the right stats and give them the right answers. But how did one read things like stats in real life? Or know what the proper answers were? There wasn’t a guide to other people, unfortunately.

But if Chou had the stats to make friends right away, maybe she could be a friend to her too? Futaba wasn’t sure. There was something no one was saying about why Chou was around. Sojiro had admitted the other night to taking another girl in as a ward, but he hadn’t explained much more about it.

Futaba checked the video feed again in time to see the odd sight of Chou bringing a bicycle from out of nowhere. “Sojiro, do you need a bike for anything?”

“Huh?” he asked, looking over at her. “Oh, that thing. No, I walk most places I need to go and can take my car anywhere else.”

“I guess I’ll take it by the second-hand store here then,” Chou said. “I’m going to look around some places today since I have more time.”

“Isn’t it scary out there?” Futaba mumbled. There were reports all over the news about mental shutdowns, people going crazy and causing massive accidents, even yakuza groups operating around the city. Of course, the sheer number of people out there would be scary to be around.

“All right, don’t be out too late,” Sojiro said. “Hey, I didn’t see your cat around yesterday. I’m not sure where she’s sneaking off to.”

“She went to school with me,” Chou said.

“You can bring cats to school?” Futaba asked, surprised.

At the mention of her, Chou’s cat hopped out of her shoulder bag and peeked over at Sojiro. She was a black cat with a white nose and paws. “Meow!”

Sojiro was surprised at that. “R-really? You could get in trouble for that, and like we discussed, nobody is going to go easy on you.”

“She’s small enough that she can sleep in my desk,” Chou said. “Besides, she’s part of my probation now, isn’t she?”

“Probation?” Futaba asked, raising an eyebrow. Then, there could be records she could find on this girl. What had she done?

After a moment, Sojiro sighed. “I guess, but make sure both of you keep out of trouble.”

“Will do,” Chou said, then headed out with the bike after the cat dropped back in her bag.

Once she was gone, Sojiro chuckled. “Taking a cat to school, huh? It’d be funny if she wasn’t in such trouble already.”

“Legal records like a juvenile’s arrest would be difficult to access,” Futaba said to herself, already at work on another monitor. “Heh heh… ooo, but it’s going to be fun to sneak a peek! I can’t get caught either.”

She wasn’t able to get into the police database right away. But she did find some postings on the message board for Chou’s high school. Tracking things backwards, she found that the original post had been deleted. There were still traces of it… all it mentioned was that Chou had been arrested for assault and sentenced to two years probation. Some later posts mentioned a lot more charges, but it seemed like rumors inflating the original information. There was info on where she’d come from too, which would make it easier to find the actual arrest data when she could get in.

“Did you really beat someone up enough to get arrested?” Futaba asked, thinking that maybe it was a good idea Sojiro was keeping Chou over at the cafe. But now that she’d started looking, she wanted to find the truth.

* * *

There were a few things in the attic that Chou wanted to keep. She had to keep the ladder for Sojiro, then there was the plant, the space heater, the fan, the portable stove, the kettle, some books, and the sticker printer with its print rolls. Other things like the bike she could sell off. The bike went to the second-hand shop in Yongen-Jaya, but some other small things might be better sold at the pawn shop in Shibuya she’d been referred to. And once she set aside some money to pay back the doctor, she could start looking into things that would help exploring that Palace.

It took a while looking around Shibuya to figure out where the store was. Morgana eventually poked her head over her shoulder. “What’re you looking for?” she asked.

“A shop I was recommended,” she said, holding up the business card. “It’s probably down some alley from what I’ve seen so far.”

“Hmm, I’d help but there’s so many people and things around that it’s driving my whiskers crazy,” Morgana said. “It’s a lot more chaotic than the Metaverse.”

“Definitely more chaotic than my hometown,” Chou said, hoping the sheer number of people made her talking to the cat in her bag less obvious. These people were probably used to screening out anything that didn’t pertain to them. “I was given some Third Eye ability. If it wasn’t so chaotic, I might be able to find the shop that way.”

Morgana patted her neck. “You should be able to. Um, you should step aside somewhere so others don’t run into you first.”

“All right.” Fortunately, there was an arcade nearby with a recessed entrance. She could head in there without going inside.

“If it’s like what I sense with my whiskers, you’ll just feel it,” Morgana said to coach her. “Focus on the card and find somewhere that matches it.”

Chou nodded and looked at the card for a few seconds. Once she brushed off a concern of this looking strange, she got an image in mind like a street map. Some places stood out to her: the cat store, a pharmacy, the beauty supply store she’d gotten bobby pins from, the bookstore, this arcade, the Ender shop… and off in a hidden walkway behind these buildings, there was a store that felt like the card. There was something else down that way too, something that felt like the Ender shop.

“Okay, I got it,” Chou said. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Morgana said, dropping back into the bag for now.

When she turned down the narrow path to the store, she immediately saw something that should have caught her eye earlier. It was a barred prison door surrounded in a blue aura. One of the twin wardens was perched on top of the door, Caroline probably. No wonder it felt like Lars’ store. Did anyone else see this, or sense it at all? It wouldn’t surprise her if they missed it.

“Hey Inmate, what are you up to?” the girl asked, confirming that it was Caroline. “This place will act as an entrance to the Velvet Room, but not until you’ve completed your assignment.”

“I figured,” Chou said.

Morgana then peeked back out. “Huh? Who’re you talking to? I feel something weird right here.”

“Do you see that?” she asked, pointing to the door.

“Uh…” she leaned out further, twitching her whiskers. “No, but I feel like there should be something.”

“Naturally,” Caroline said. “Only guests of the Velvet Room can see an entrance like this, even if said guest is an inmate.”

“But if I’m a guest, why am I an inmate too?” Chou asked.

“Well…” Caroline scratched her head.

“The girl here says that only guests of the Velvet Room can see the door in,” she explained to Morgana while Caroline was puzzled too.

“The Velvet Room?” Morgana asked. Chou tried not to smile at getting two supernatural beings mystified at once. “Huh, sounds familiar, but I can’t think of what it is.”

“Well the cat clearly doesn’t belong!” Caroline said, pointing her baton down at Morgana. “I don’t know what she is, but don’t bring her inside! I insist! It must be in the rules.”

“All right,” Chou said. “She says I can’t bring you in, Morgana. Not that I can go in right now, since they told me to bring six Personas back to them.”

“Six?” Morgana asked, astonished. “Holy moly, really? It’s weird enough that you have two.”

“That should be nothing to a real Trickster,” Caroline said. “Our master is watching you.”

“I know, I’ll be back,” she said.

Down the alley past the Velvet Room entrance, she finally found the Untouchable shop. There was a large glowing sign above the door, but none of it would be visible from the main part of Central Street. Chou felt wary being back here on her own. At least it was during the day and it wasn’t too far back to the main street. The signs outside indicated that it was a pawn shop and something called an airsoft shop. It seemed to have something to do with model crafts.

Her first impression of the place was that it was no ordinary secondhand shop. For one thing, there were a bunch of guns in a glass case right where a rough looking man with a tattoo on his neck was sitting reading a paper. Weren’t those weapons illegal to sell? No wait, the sign said that they were models, probably like the one she’d received in the Metaverse. Maybe he could tell more about the one she had; knowing more about it would make her feel more comfortable using it.

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure about dealing with this man to learn that. There were things around that looked like they belonged in a military, including him. He gave her a hard look that was unsettling, like that glare from the drunk who got her arrested. Only, this man didn’t seem drunk. It made the look more intense.

“Whaddya want?” he asked gruffly.

Maybe he didn’t have many high school girls as customers; that made sense. “I was referred here by a secondhand shop in Yongen-Jaya; the owner said you might buy some things I have.”

“I think I know the guy,” he said, then shrugged and set his paper aside. “Alright, what’ve you got?”

He did relax his attitude to look over the various oddities that had been in the attic, offering what seemed like a decent price on the lot. Chou still wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask him about guns (although he surely had to know good info). But once the sale was complete, she did muster up the courage to ask him about something less suspicious. “Do you have pocketknives here with small tools? With a screwdriver at least.”

“What would you want one of those for?” he asked.

“I moved into an old place and need to do some small repairs,” she explained, feeling that he wouldn’t believe that she wanted it as a potential tool in a dream world.

“Sure enough,” he said, going over to open up a case at the end. After a moment, he picked out a black one and started unfolding it. “If you need the tools more than the knife, this should do you. Two screwdrivers, adjustable wrench head, small scissors, a file, nail clippers, small knife, magnifying lens, and tweezers. You’d want proper tools for a big job, but these’ll do for small ones.”

“That sounds like it’ll work fine,” Chou said. It cost nearly all of what she’d been given for her things, but it should be a good investment.

Once they were out of the store, Morgana was on her shoulder again. “Hey, did I hear that right? You bought a tool knife thingy?”

She nodded and brought it out of the bag to show off. “After we had to take that grating off the wall, I felt like this would be handy.”

“Nice, good buy,” she said. “I can teach you to make the more specialized tools when we get the time and materials, but that will definitely be handy for a phantom thief.”

“But I get the feeling that once I buy the vitamins the doctor recommended, I’ll be thin on money again,” Chou said, putting the knife back in the bag. “So I guess I’ll go work at the flower shop once I check the pharmacy.”

“We can get money from fighting in the Metaverse, so don’t worry about it too much. Oh, and you might want to get some gloves at the pharmacy.”

“Gloves?”

“Just a precaution for what’s ahead,” Morgana said, then dropped back down into the bag.

The pharmacy did have a box of disposable medical gloves, apparently for first aid. Morgana said they’d be fine and they were cheap. On the other hand, the multivitamins for mental health weren’t. Trusting the doctor’s word, Chou bought them too, then headed off to the underground mall to work at the flower shop for a few hours. The owner had her put together a few bouquets to show her how to properly make them. Some customers bought the ones she made, happily.

That evening, she took her homework out to the small laundromat to get both of those tasks done. She considered doing more cleaning in her room but it might be better to go to bed early instead. After all, she had no plans after school tomorrow. It’d be an ideal time to head back into Kamoshida’s Palace and see what they could do to stop him.

Morgana lay on one of the unused washers, mostly thinking to herself. But once Chou got her clothes into the driers, the cat said, “Hey, you seem to be doing better today. Do you want to go into the Metaverse tomorrow?”

“I was thinking of doing that since my head hasn’t hurt much today,” Chou said.

“Great! Then there’s something we need to settle first. You remember how we shouldn’t speak our real names in someone else’s layer of the Metaverse?”

She nodded. “Yes, because it will draw their attention to us unconsciously. Given what I’ve seen and heard of Kamoshida, I don’t want that.”

Morgana sat up, curling her tail around her paws. “Right. At the same time, we don’t want to be going ‘hey you’ all the time. We should come up with code names for each other. Like, I think you should be Joker.”

“Joker?” She glanced over before putting the coins into the machine.

“Yup!” Morgana said excitedly. “After all, you’re effectively our wild card with your ability to change Personas on the fly. I just have Zorro, my native powers, and knowledge, but that still limits me. You’ve got talent and so much potential that it boggles the mind. Joker is perfect for you as a codename.”

“Sounds good to me,” Chou said, smiling and turning to put the coins in the machine. “But if I’m Joker, then you’ve got to be Ace because you’re far more experienced than me.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds great!” Morgana said. “Better than what I had been thinking, actually. Alrighty then, we are now a phantom thief duo, Joker and Ace.”

“We’re going to take the mental world by storm with names like those,” she said, turning the machines on. Then she rubbed Morgana’s head behind her ears.

“We definitely will! Now, here’s my plan for infiltrating the Palace and stealing the Treasure…”

* * *

4/18

“Personas are the mask one wears to deal with the hardships of life. A person’s true self may not fit neatly into society. Thus, their outward persona may be one that follows the rules of society. But in the dark, outside of the judging eyes of others, people can be very different.”

“I’ve been reading about that,” Chou said, finding that her dream had drifted to an outdoors cafe. An elegant vase held flowers that kept shifting colors and breeds when she wasn’t looking. A white teacup with pink hearts sat in front of her, holding some green tea. Even the parasol over the table had a dainty fringe of lace. It felt awkward being here.

Across the table from her was herself. Her gold-eyed unconscious self, wearing a red and black suit that mimicked what Arsene wore. “There’s a thought that the book has given me,” she said, resting her head on her hand. “Personas are masks. People wear different masks for different situations. However, it seems that we’re unusual for being able to wear different Persona. So…” she twirled a fork in her hand and looked over.

Ah… “So is a Persona a persona?” she asked.

Her other self grinned. “You’ve been keeping Arsene as your active Persona the past few days. I mean, why not? He’s apparently a gentleman thief and we’re going to act as a phantom thief. He’s cool and we’re cool. How about you try having Bicorn as your active Persona today? At least until we go raid the castle. See what happens.”

“What’s Bicorn supposed to be? It seemed like some weird dirty antelope. I don’t want to give off a scruffy vibe.” Other students didn’t mind bending the uniform code or appearing scruffy, but she was supposed to be working on her charm according to butterfly girl.

She shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but I’ve got a hunch that you won’t need to be shabby or grungy. Just give it a try.”

“All right…” she shifted her Persona to Bicorn and started to call on him. But the dream faded into dawn’s glow.

Chou’s usual morning routine included combing her hair to get out tangles, then shaking it out to let it go wherever. Her hair tended to be unmanageable in any other way, slipping out of line and fluttering off to any movement of air. Only hair sprays labeled extra strong hold worked and those left her hair feeling greasy at the end of the day. As she looked over herself in the mirror of the public restroom, she considered that she might need to trim up her bangs. Although, having her hair and her glasses obscure her face added a tantalizing mystery to her expressions. Right?

She chuckled at herself, then recalled the days she’d been actively cultivating a pretty boy style. That had been such fun; she got girls staring and wondering who ‘that hottie’ was, while boys bashfully wondered why they were attracted to a guy. In most cases, both sides would end up disappointed or even angry that the pretty guy turned out to be a girl. But it was fun while they were confused. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that right now.

As she was eating breakfast, Sojiro surprised her by asking, “Got something on your mind? You seem very serious.”

“If I look serious, that’s a mistake,” Chou said, looking across the bar at him. Had he been a looker when he was younger? Although if he had been, his stand-offish attitude wouldn’t have done him any favors. “I was considering going by the school store and picking up some uniform pants. Change up my look on occasion.”

“Huh, you’re thinking of wearing the boys’ uniform?” Sojiro asked, now the one being surprised.

“Just the pants,” she said, feeling that she was acting silly today. Bicorn’s influence? She’d have to look it up. “I’ve read the school rules and regulations carefully. Once, but I remember it. It describes the cut and style requirements of the school uniform but nowhere does it say that girls must wear skirts and boys must wear pants. People just assume it does.”

Sojiro sighed, scratching his head. “Even so, it’s an assumption made because of the expectations of society. You shouldn’t be causing trouble just because there’s no written rules; people will call you out on it fast.”

“That’s unfortunate,” she said. When he narrowed his eyes at her, Chou smiled again and waved it off. “Sorry, I’m in a silly mood today. I’ll be careful.”

But she could at least entertain herself today with this silliness. It might make the gossiping and stares easier to endure.

* * *

After taking care of the early customers, Sojiro got a moment to think back over his conversation with Chou. She was talking with him informally; that was good. She was in a better mood than when she arrived; that was also good, perhaps due to the friend she brought over yesterday. But still, flaunting the school dress code because she was in a silly mood? Maybe she was a troublesome kid. Although, it was a milder form of troublesome than one would expect out of a teenager with a criminal record.

His phone rang; he checked it under the counter first. That was Futaba’s number. Worried that something was wrong, he went back into the kitchen to take the call. “Hey, is something the matter?”

“That girl, the one staying over there…”

“Are you tapping into the security camera again?” Sojiro asked.

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” she said, as always. It was a different sort of security to her, though. “And her. Does she have a photographic memory?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, is she like me? Remembering things precisely by looking at them once. She said she read the school regulations once, and she’s right, nowhere in the dress code does Shujin Academy specify that girls wear girl uniforms and guys wear guy uniforms. They just assume that no student would want to crossdress.”

“Huh.” Then Chou had an eye for loopholes. Was Futaba interested in speaking with her? It was strange, but maybe if there were such similarities, Futaba might feel more comfortable starting to socialize. Then the question came back to if Chou was a dangerous sort of trouble or if she were merely mischievous.

“Ask her about that for me, okay?” Futaba said.

“Sure, I’ll talk with her after she gets back from school,” Sojiro said. If she was in a better mood now, it should be a good chance to gauge her actual personality.

“Good, now don’t forget.” She then hung up.

“I’ll try,” Sojiro said, then headed back to the counter to do some work on a crossword.

* * *

“Oh hey, did you hear? Another one of the volleyball players ended up in the hospital!”

Hmm? Chou tried not to look at the gossiping girls next to her. She’d been making a doodle of Arsene today, something that was him but not too complicated. Maybe just the hat? Although the blue flames and chains were cool… but what was this about someone in the hospital?

“Really? Who was it?”

“One of the freshmen girls, apparently it was really serious.”

“Did she try to commit suicide too?”

“Maybe, they aren’t saying just like they’re not saying about whatever it was on Saturday. But man, did somebody curse the volleyball team before their tournament season? The matches leading up to Nationals are starting soon.”

“That’s creepy. I wonder what’s going on.”

Did they not notice that Yuuki wasn’t in class again? His desk was in the second row too, not in the back row nor in this column of ignored students by the windows. Chou wondered how he was doing, and what happened to this freshman girl. And something else…

A white paw stretched out from her desk. “Ah, sorry, I fell asleep to that English lecture,” Morgana said quietly.

“You missed a weird teacher,” Chou said, thinking that science class was interesting due to the teacher’s eccentric attitude. The next teacher wasn’t in yet, so she leaned down as if looking for something in her desk. “Hey, you know that Bicorn? What is a bicorn, really?”

“You mean your Persona?” Morgana asked, shifting to put her face more in view. “Well, you know how a unicorn is a symbol of purity? A bicorn is a symbol of impurity, also of adultery.”

Sighing, she shifted back to Arsene. “Geez. Wish I knew that before I tried coming to school with him as my active Persona. That explains how silly I’ve been feeling.”

“Oh so your Persona actually affects your persona?” she asked, interested. “I see, it really is your mask. Even as a mask, such an act affects how you feel. Oh wait, then Bicorn… ah, well at least you aren’t in a relationship right now?”

Chou chuckled. “Right, may as well look on the bright side.”

Morgana chuckled too. “Well any time you want to know more about a particular Persona you have, just ask me. I’ll try to warn you about any that could cause problems too.”

Then someone tapped the back of her chair with a pen. “Uh, hey?”

Glancing back at the boy sitting behind her, she tried to think of his name. It didn’t come to mind right away. “Yes?”

He leaned over his desk and tried to whisper, “Is that a real cat in your desk?”

“Yes,” Chou said. “She won’t let me leave home without her. You mean to tell Ms. Kawakami?”

Thankfully, he shook his head. “Nah. I mean, the absurdity of having a cat in the classroom?” He smiled. “Sure breaks up the boredom of the school day.”

“Yeah, I keep waiting for the school to bare its fangs as the elite prep school it’s supposed to be,” she said to him. “Give me a challenge already, sheesh.”

And he agreed. “Hopefully it’ll pick up next month; it should by the time volleyball Nationals are over. If it wasn’t for the science club, I’d have tried transferring to another school myself. Everyone’s so into the sports teams and thinks I’m a snob for not being interested. All well, so it goes.”

“So it goes,” Chou agreed, in part because the teacher was coming in to start class. She went back to her drawings of Arsene. Maybe the hat, eyes, and some flames?

“I guess an advantage to being in cat form is that I’m cute enough that people want to hide me?” Morgana asked. Chou gave a slight nod, not wanting to respond aloud to that.

When classes got out, Chou checked on the Metaverse app. It wanted her to take a ‘Request’ tutorial, but there was also a ‘Guest Teammates’ tutorial. The latter had a note requesting that it be taken ‘within neutral grounds’. After double-checking that she had the Goho-M sticks, she opened the ‘Request’ tutorial.

“What’s up?” Morgana asked, sneaking into her lap. “I thought we were going into Kamoshida’s Palace today.”

“The pushy tutorial system wants me to activate it before navigating anywhere,” Chou said, showing her. The friendly guy behind her was already gone, while others still in the classroom were pointedly ignoring her. Fine, as long as they didn’t bug her about Morgana.

The tutorial had multiple long text boxes for her to scroll through.

Request Tutorial

The Request system is a vital tool to your participation in the Game. It is not given to every Player, nor have you been given every tool. Make use of the Request system frequently to establish your reputation.

Requests come from a rumored ritual to make you aware of potential objectives in the Metaverse. In the ritual, a requester will use their phone to send an email to their own account; the message contains the name of someone who has wronged them along with how they were wronged. This app will delete the message from their account to transfer it to your request list. You are given various means to sort through and search the request list gathered in this manner.

When you have found a suitable request to take, select it to make it active. If the request lacks a full name, you may be required to uncover the target’s full name to get a match within the Metaverse. When the target is confirmed, you will need to send them a warning to make them aware that they have sinned. Untraceable text messaging is available through this app, although the means of warning are up to your discretion. Once warned, the target’s distorted desires will materialize temporarily. The app will alert you when the warning is realized.

Targets within Mementos may be warned up to a week in advance of your mission to hunt them. However, completing a mission quickly will provide optimal efficiency. Targets that have a separate Palace may be warned up to forty-eight hours in advance, but in reality may have much shorter deadlines before skepticism dissolves the materialized desires. A deadline of twenty-four hours with a Palace owner is more likely. Once the heart of the target has changed due to the destruction or theft of their desires, the request will be counted as complete.

Activity on the app indicates that a visited Palace matches several Requests already in the system. Activate at least one matching Request and complete it within the discovered Palace in order to complete this tutorial.

“This is what I planned on doing, but I hate being told I have to do it before I can make free use of this app,” Chou muttered.

“No kidding,” Morgana said, then pawed the side of the phone. “But look, this app calls a Palace a Palace, just like I do! They just don’t call the desires Treasures. It mentions Mementos too.”

“Well you’re the one who knows about all this,” Chou said. “It’s not surprising that the terms match. And, this all here is what you were talking about yesterday, right?” She pointed out the section about deadlines.

She nodded. “Right. The warning text would be handy for targets who don’t have their own Palace. But like I said, if we want to be stylish, the calling card is the way to go for people like Kamoshida. Nice and dramatic.”

“I’m all for the drama,” she said, letting the app show her the requests that dealt with Kamoshida.

‘Coach Kamoshida, he pressured me to leave the team because he thinks I’m crap for fainting repeatedly from dehydration. Now everyone else thinks I’m crap too for leaving. I’m thinking maybe I should kill myself like Yuuki did, but I’m too scared to do anything, even that. I don’t want to be worthless but it seems I am.’

‘Suguru Kamoshida. During my first practice with the team, he grabbed my boobs only to laugh and say I was too small and plain. He keeps embarrassing me in front of the whole team too and all of us have to watch for him grabbing at our butts. But I can’t talk bad about him openly because he’d reveal all that embarrassing stuff to the whole school so everyone would bully me. My parents say I need to put up with it because I need a good record, but I can’t help thinking to myself, how is this good? I can’t do anything, please help.’

‘Kamoshita, the shujin volleyball coach that berates all of us and says we’ll never match him. One time he punched me until I could barely stand, but I’ve gotten off lucky to not get his ire too much. He terrorizes the girls and other boys much more. Sometimes I think about speaking out, but he’s told me that if I do, he’ll reveal that I’m cheating to pass exams even though he’s the one who gives me the cheat sheets so I get decent enough scores to stay here. Maybe it’s stupid of me to worry about that, but my grandfather would raise hell if he found out. I don’t want to cause trouble and become an outcast like Sakamoto.’

‘Suguru Kamoshida has been awful, making both volleyball teams feel like trash while making sure all the glory of Nationals gets attributed to him. I hate him, but I’ve done what he tells me ever since he made me kiss him to get accepted on the team. He pinned me to him then to make sure it wasn’t just a little kiss. I should’ve taken that as a sign to run away no matter how much my parents would’ve yelled at me for wasting their efforts to get me into this school. But I didn’t and he forced me into sex with no warning at all today. Then he said the crying made me ugly and he’d expect me to come around again unless I told everyone that Shiho was fighting with her friend Ann about who was a better lover to him. And if he doesn’t hear that rumor going around soon, he’ll start one that I seduced him. But it’s wrong and there’s no way my parents are going to believe me. I don’t know what to do. If you are out there, vengeful ghost, please do something about him!’

“Oh my god, this is horrible,” Morgana said, tilting her ears down.

Chou nodded, not wanting to talk further about this around the other students. She accepted the request from the girl who reported about her rape, then put her things away. “Let’s get outside so we can get in without notice,” she whispered to Morgana.

“Gotcha.” She hopped back into the bag and kept still. Chou was getting the hang of carrying her bag to not toss Morgana around too much.

Once she got down the stairs, someone called out to her. “Hey, Amamiya-chan! How’s our school going for you since you transferred here?”

It was Kamoshida, strutting over with an outwardly friendly smile on his face. A thought came into mind: while she meant to tear him down, it was best to deal with him in the normal world with some little suggestions that she wouldn’t be interesting to him. “Fine, I hope classes get harder soon,” she said, turning towards the entrance.

“What, you’re going to brush a teacher off?” Kamoshida asked, following her. All around them, the students milling around had gone into a hush. They might be intimidated by Kamoshida, or they might be intimidated by her. Either way, they were hesitantly curious. “I know you’ve been in a lot of trouble. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, we’re willing to help you out. Shujin is a school for those with aspirations to learn. Come on, how about you come to my office and ask me anything you’d like?”

“No thank you,” Chou said, but then paused and tilted her head back at him as if giving it some thought. “Well, I have one question right now. Nothing that needs going back to your office for.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, coming to her side and crossing his arms over his chest. He was playing nice right now, judging her as much as she was judging him.

“Is there a rule here against a girl wearing a boy’s uniform?” she asked, plainly like she was asking where the bathrooms were.

The reaction was immediate: his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped a little. Down the hall, someone tittered with laughter they couldn’t hide. “Wearing what now?”

“I think I look prettier dressed as a boy,” Chou said, acting casual and running her fingers through her hair. Perhaps this rumor would overtake the talk about her probation. “But I wanted to be sure I wasn’t breaking any rules since Shujin so kindly accepted my transfer. So is it allowed for me to wear a boy’s uniform?”

“No, you can’t do that,” Kamoshida said, stepping back and rubbing his forehead. “It sounds like a mean thing to do, to look pretty but like a boy. You’d confuse a lot of guys like me.”

Did he really excuse it like that? A smartass response was so tempting… oh, hell with it. “How would seeing a pretty boy-ish girl confuse you?” she asked in false innocence, turning to him and speaking with more projection. More titters came from around them, along with hushes and worried looks toward the coach.

He bit his lip while his ears turned red. “Just don’t do it,” he said in a strict tone to hide his embarrassment.

Shrugging, she said, “If you say so. Thank you for answering.” She then headed on out the door.

“Man, she’s got guts to tease him like that,” a boy said just in her hearing.

“Maybe she just doesn’t know,” another boy said.

Outside the school she heard Morgana laugh. “He walked right into that one.”

“Absolutely,” Chou agreed, heading towards the narrow alley to get out of sight. “Now let’s cut him down in a way he won’t see coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Altering how the initial Metaverse visits go makes Morgana's suggestion of 'Joker' more natural, I think. Since Ryuji isn't involved to give Morgana a pirate-related codename, she gets the card-related codename of Ace instead. Chou is an avid reader, so it's plausible that she could've read things and arrived at Mona too. But Ace made more sense for the moment because of the 'wild card' mention.
> 
> The request ritual is an updated method of the Joker summoning from Persona 2, where you call your own phone number to summon a kind of genie (it's more complicated and unexplained than that, but that's the spoiler-free version).


	9. Eight of Pentacles

4/18

They paused before the castle upon leaving the alley. Morgana felt like it looked a lot more obnoxious than before. While everything about a Palace was symbolic, knowing what that symbolism was about changed her view of this place. Not that she’d had a high opinion of it before, given how the guards and king treated her. “Okay, Joker, you ready?”

“Ready to go, Ace,” she said, looking away from the conceited banners and signs. “We have to search deep in there for the Treasure, right?’

“That’s right,” she said, shifting to thinking of herself as Ace. “I’ve searched through the dungeon floors and the area around the entrance. So far, I’ve gotten into a maze of a library but haven’t figured out the trick to its door. There’s also a couple of barred off areas on the second floor that I’m curious about. One of those areas will get us deeper in. You remember that safe room we were in last time? We can start there to get close to the barred places.”

“Sure, that safe room was past the stairs behind our shaft entrance, right?”

“Yes, but there’s a better way,” Ace said, offering her paw. “I can travel instantly between safe rooms and the entrance here. You might be able to do it too once you experience it. Take my paw.”

She nodded and took her paw. Safe rooms (and a zone in case of the entrance) were areas that the Palace’s owner did not control. Therefore, it was possible for intruders like them to steal control over such rooms. From there, it was a matter of willing themselves to another place of safety. It was a kind of magic, so she hoped Joker wouldn’t ask for it to be explained in logical terms. Logic could get in the way of manipulating cognition, which could draw attention to them.

“Did you feel it?” Ace asked.

“Sure, we shifted places on the map that Third Eye reveals,” Joker said.

“Good! Now you haven’t been on this level much, so I’ll explain the layout. One barred hall is past the entrance room from here. The other is actually a cage past a dining hall nearby; it doesn’t really block a path, but something is locked inside it. What are your thoughts on which way to go?” Ace already had a plan; she wanted to see how Joker would decide.

After a few seconds, she answered, “First, we should check out that cage. Since you already explored that area and didn’t find anything, it’s more likely that we’ll find progress past the barred hall or past the library. But the cage may be holding something we need to progress elsewhere.”

“Good answer,” Ace said with a smile. “That was going to be my suggestion too. I had some trouble figuring out the cage, mostly because that’s where I got caught. Keep alert and we’ll go solve the puzzle!”

There were three Shadows patrolling in the dining hall, plus one in the hallway they had to go through to reach there. Outside the dining hall, Ace brought out her slingshot to fire some pebbles into the room. That lured the patrol Shadows out one at a time, giving her plenty of time to show Joker basic battle strategies. Teaching her how to corner Shadows into a hold-up proved extra useful, since Joker was then able to talk Shadows into becoming her Personas. By the time they reached the cage room, Joker was capable of dealing Curse, Fire, and Wind damage, using heals and debuffs, and making a Shadow panic. She wasn’t even at the six Persona goal yet for her mystery benefactor.

“Here’s the place,” Ace said quietly as they went inside the cage room. “There’s no lock, but there’s clearly some mechanism that should lift the bars.”

Marching boots could be heard in the next room, so they quietly searched around. It was one of the more ornate rooms, with polished marble floors, gilded metal bars blocking off the center of the room, and large black goat heads placed on the pillars to hold rings and candles. Inside the caged center, a table with suggestive carvings stood with papers, boxes, and a locked chest set on it. Hopefully something here held keys to the various locked doors that Ace had encountered.

“I can tell that the guards have a few different walking paths through this room,” Ace said after they circled around the cage. “It’s in the scents from the floor. And I peeked at the machinery above these pillars, but wasn’t sure what connected to what.”

“I see it,” Joker said, heading along one side. She was following one of the odder patrol paths through the room. Stopping where the path did at a pillar, she pulled on the ring hanging from the goat head’s nose. A series of clanks sounded overhead.

“Oo, you got something to change,” she said.

“Maybe unlocking the machinery, because there’s another hidden switch over here,” she said, walking quickly but quietly along the bars. She pulled a candle out from the wall, triggering the hidden chains to pull the cage bars up.

“All right,” Ace said, excited but trying to keep quiet too. She bounced in place instead. “You go ahead and check that out; I’ll stay here to make sure you don’t get locked in.”

“Got it.”

Unfortunately, there weren’t any keys. The various boxes held student pins for Shujin over a decade ago, along with small awards and ribbons for sporting events. Joker got the locked chest open easily, but it only had some jewels inside. Out of it all, the best item was an almost full map of the castle, just lying out in the open. A few places Ace had seen in the dungeons were missing and the library was one giant block of nothing. Still, the map hinted at secret passages and rooms. Doors led to blank spots and some lines had been smudged from an eraser.

Joker tapped one of the erased passages. “This is where the barred hall is? It either leads to this disconnected room here, or straight into the library.”

“And the library will get us deeper, if one of the erased passages doesn’t do the same,” Ace said. “All right, we’ll try the barred hall and see about finding hidden passages. But first, come take a peek into this room. There’s stronger guards in here but we should be able to get a good look. I feel it’s an important part of the owner’s cognition, perhaps an obvious one to you but still worth seeing.”

On the other side of the ornate cage room, an equally opulent chapel looked more like a shrine of excess than a holy place. It was lit by sparkling chandeliers, colorful stained glass murals, and many-armed candle stands, with a fine carpet between rows of wooden pews. At the front of the chapel, there was a massive golden statue of Kamoshida in his spread royal cloak. His hands were both held in the air like an athlete’s triumph. The air rippled while they were taking in the display of vanity, revealing a far more ordinary gymnasium.

“Ah, of course,” Joker said.

Ace nodded. “A gym would be his holy place. I had to focus to see it the first time. But see, you’re unaffected by distortion and you’ve been to the actual place this is based on. The will of your rebellion protects you with your clothes here; it can also reveal real-world counterparts. It’ll be harder if we get in a place you don’t know at all, but keep that ability in mind when trying to solve puzzles or find a path forward.”

She nodded in agreement, starting to creep away. They should move on. However, someone walked out of nowhere in front of them. It wasn’t one of the Shadow guards. Instead, it was a ghostly vision of Kamoshida’s younger self.

“I spent my sweat, blood, and tears here,” the ghost said, injuries and bruises briefly appearing before fading away. “I sacrificed so much to learn, to better myself even with him degrading me all the way. Now with him gone, I rule this gym. I will teach the same way he did, no, better than that; only the best can rise from here.” He gave a bitter smile while he cracked his knuckles. “I finally rule this school, as I should have when I was a student here. No one will knock me down ever again.” He walked ahead and vanished before he reached the pew.

Ace twitched her whiskers. “I hope that self of his doesn’t alert security to us.”

“He might, but he mostly just talks,” Joker said. “I ran into him in the dungeon. Let’s get out of here.”

“Sure, that’s for the best.”

A new Shadow was patrolling the dining room, but only one. They used the shadows to slip from pillar to pillar to leave without being noticed. From there, Ace led Joker a different way to the second floor of the entrance hall. It put them on level with the chandeliers, above the place where Shadow Kamoshida had his knights gathered. “We’re at your service!” the knights all shouted as one.

“As you should be,” Kamoshida said. “Now make sure our security is at its best! I don’t want any more intruders in my castle! Your food rations will get cut again if there’s reports of any more.”

“Yes, your majesty!”

“I’m being serious,” Kamoshida said. “Now let’s review what you knuckleheads should already know.”

Since he was lecturing, Ace hopped on top of the railing. “Come,” she said quietly before hopping over to the structure on top of the chandelier. The metal ring made little noise in response to her landing and gave surprisingly good footing.

Joker glanced around first, then nodded and got on the railing herself. She took a moment to get herself steady, then hopped over just the same as jumping between cover. Since she weighed more, the chandelier swayed a little when she landed. They both paused a moment to make sure what little noise they made was drowned out by Kamoshida’s voice, then circled around to jump to another chandelier and the other ledge of the entrance hall.

Once they were out of the entrance hall, Joker chuckled softly. “This feels like an awesome movie.”

“A what?” Ace asked, moving ahead and keeping her senses open.

“I’ll have to take you by a theater sometime,” she said. “For now, just know that this is fun.”

Good, this was going great. “Isn’t it? Even the tense moments that can turn to danger are fun. And it’s all for a good cause too.”

Not much further, they arrived at the other potential way into the library. Ace hadn’t figured a way to raise these bars either. But as they approached, the bars raised on their own. Ace held a paw up in warning. They checked around carefully to see what might have opened the way. Down the hallway past rows of empty armor, giggles could be heard.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Ace said, rubbing her whiskers before trying to sense the area ahead again. “I don’t sense any strong Shadows, not like the chapel. But I have a sinking feeling this’ll be ugly.”

“There’s a lot of ugly in here, even the stuff that tries to look nice,” Joker said. “But there might be a secret passage in this area. Let’s slip in and look around.”

“Agreed.”

Blending into the shadows as they went down the armor-lined hall, they heard a girl’s voice from inside. “But I want to be his again! I want him to fill me with tears of joy!”

“No way, he should take me again! I’ve been waiting for longer!”

There was a disgusted grimace on Joker’s face, and for good reason. There was a gaggle of girls in there, most pink-skinned with no faces. They wore skinny panties, a bra, a hair ribbon, a sock, or a skirt, but never more than three articles of clothing. At one end of the room, there was a large X-shaped rack with a cognitive girl shackled to it. She was less pink than the others, more clearly someone who had Kamoshida’s notice. Two others were very recognizable. Ann wore a princess-style tiara with cat ears and a skimpy purple bikini. Near the chained up girl, Shiho had bunny ears and a black bikini, the lower half with a white puff tail attached.

“But he’s been waiting on us two for so long,” Shiho said with a sultry tone of wanting. She was trying to get the girl unchained. “We’ve had much more fun teasing him, and will be well rewarded with his love for a long time.”

After giving a soft huff of anger, Joker slipped into the room behind some large fuzzy sofas. She was likely ignoring the cognitions as best she could. Ace followed after, some thoughts speaking up to her. Even if her partner was keeping cool now, it was likely that her empathy would make her patience run out. They both needed to keep cool no matter how bad things were.

“Kamoshida’s so clever!” Ann said with a bright smile and a cock of her head. “He’s figured us out and we’re going to reward him for it. But you know, it’s just us girls in here! So you know what we do for men?”

“We long for the strong,” a couple of girls cried out.

“We want the king’s jewels!”

“We act shy, sensitive, and modest, all so we find the worthy who assert themselves as men should!”

Sensing a movement of air from the wall, Ace got into Joker’s shadow and pointed to the corner. She looked over it, then nodded and went to press her fingers against the wall. It shifted but didn’t open. As Ace stayed near her, her whiskers picked up on Joker’s aura searching over near the girls.

“We’ll test them by saying no even when our bodies crave their passion!”

Joker then stood up, still shadowed in hiding despite risking the movement. But it was clear that she had been sensing out if the cognitions could notice them. She pulled out a hidden lever, twisted it, then pushed the door in to get into the secret passage. On the other side, a knob of breast had to be turned to put the lever back in place.

“That kind of thinking is disgusting and needs to be broken,” Joker muttered as they headed for the spiral stairs ahead.

“Even if the anger is deserved, don’t let your emotions get out of hand in Palaces,” Ace said. “Strong feelings out of us will attract the Shadows that protect the owner’s mind.”

“I’ll do my best.”

At the top of the stairs, they had to pass through a narrow passage. So few candles were around that Joker plucked one off the wall to help light the way. Some small rooms were along the way, holding dusty pictures and objects. They were forgotten things. If they were trying to redeem the Palace owner, there might be important things in a place like this. But Kamoshida needed to be punished. They shouldn’t need to comb through these things, but it was good to keep this location in mind.

The passage led them to another hidden door that sent them to a long room with many chairs in it. Adults were sitting in every chair on one side, talking in nonsensical sounds. On the other side, others were gathered around a shrine to Kamoshida. They had candles lit around a portrait of him as a romantic hero, poised in armor with a profusion of roses around him. None of the cognitions noticed that they’d entered the room.

“The king is our savior.”

“We can’t let anyone harm him.”

“Is he going to give out bonuses this month?”

“We can count on him for anything.”

“Well he’d better live up to our expectations or he’ll be another forgotten wash-up.”

“What? How can you say that? Even if it is true, not in front of the king.”

“I’m sure he won’t disappoint us. He will bring us glory always so we can go about our meaningless duties and bask in his glow.”

They passed through the room. Just before they left, the air rippled. What lay underneath was a room packed with desks loaded with all kinds of files and papers. “It’s the faculty office,” Joker said as the room changed back.

One of the male teachers by the shrine then said, “I wish that he’d share his girls, you know? The only females he doesn’t go after are the old hags over twenty-three and the ugly ones.” None of the female teachers in the room reacted to that, although Joker frowned and left.

The library was right past the door. Ace hurried to a door adjacent to where they entered. “Here, this is the door I couldn’t get past. It needs some kind of medal in this slot, not something we could bypass with a lockpick.”

“You think the medal will be in here?” Joker asked.

“Should be, if it wasn’t in that cage.” She turned around, thinking of where to check first.

However, the young Kamoshida was by a bookshelf near them. He had a small book in his hand. “You wanted to be challenged?” he asked. “I admit, the puzzle in here is simple. An ape could figure it out. Very well, I’ll change things. See if you can get out of here.” He vanished again, the book falling on the floor.

“What is he?” Joker asked. “He doesn’t seem to alert the Shadows.”

As she went over to the book, Ace searched around with her whiskers to pick up on any traces that had been left behind. “Hmm, I’m not sure. Kamoshida’s Shadow Self is definitely that one with the heart cape. The ghost must be connected somehow…”

“Right,” she said, following her over. “Maybe it’s a part of him that split off? Because I had to speak with seven pieces of my unconscious self to get them to cooperate.”

She shrugged and picked up the book. “Could be. I wonder if he can identify you; your outfit here should obscure who you really are in the Metaverse save to those who already know.”

“Then what is this?” Joker crouched by her.

Ace showed off the cover of the gray book. It had a picture of Chou from behind, in her Shujin uniform. Above that, the title said, ‘Transfer Student Twist: Chou Amamiya’. “Something like this represents the owner’s opinions and experiences with others, like having your thoughts recorded away in memory to review later. I’ve looked around here before and many of these books are just like this one. Others record his experiences, his dreams, his knowledge; it’s likely most everything he knows is in here.”

“Most everything?”

She nodded. “Right, remember that dark passage we came through? That area would store things he’s nearly forgotten or wants to forget. He could be reminded of them if the things were brought out. Anyhow,” she put the book on a cart nearby, “there should be non-aggressive Shadows around here who’ll sort that back into place. I’ll show you some suspicious places and a safe room, then we can figure out the puzzle to this place.”

“Can you tell the difference between the aggressive and non-aggressive Shadows?” Joker asked.

“Naturally,” Ace said. “Most of the time it’s not hard. You know how a lot of Shadows we’ve fought start out looking like knights? In a castle like this, a knight form would be a defensive Shadow who would attack us right away. But if we ran into a Shadow dressed as a maid, or maybe a librarian in this room, they might not attack us themselves but would call for a knight. This is all built around the owner’s mind and imagination.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Let’s keep an eye out for knights, then. If I can get two more Personas in here, I’d like to go back to the entrance. There was an entrance to the Velvet Room there.”

“Gotcha, let’s go.”

There were indeed a couple of maid Shadows around, moving books around and cleaning the aisles. The two of them snuck around the maids as best they could, ambushing knights when they got the Shadows alone. When Joker finally got her sixth Persona, they were closer to one of the suspicious spots than the safe room. Ace took her over to investigate one of the bookshelves along the wall. A carpeted reading area with a fireplace was nearby; a few books were left on the table, possibly information Kamoshida had been thinking over recently.

“All right, my student, what do you notice here?” Ace asked.

Joker looked right to one of the clues as soon as she was asked and crouched down to get a better look. “There’s scuff marks here,” she said, touching the floor. “Like something heavy is moved around here. I’d guess, this bookshelf covers a hidden room? You see hidden rooms behind bookcases in stories.”

“Yup, that’s what I think too,” she said. “Normally there’s a switch on the bookcase in question, as a fake book or behind some real ones. But I don’t think that’s the case here.”

After focusing on the bookshelf a moment, she nodded. “I can tell it moves even without the scuffing. Someone comes and goes through here often. But there’s nothing that stands out about the case like the goat switch in the other room.”

“Then what would that mean?” Ace asked, encouraging her to think it through. Solving puzzles was a standard part of being a phantom thief; they relied on wit rather than brute force.

“The Metaverse is a dreamworld formed in part by imagination,” Joker said quietly, thinking it over. “Ideas spread by popular media are likely to show up in Palaces then… a switch could be on another bookcase, or perhaps that fireplace? We might just have to search for anything suspicious, but some part of the puzzle is likely right here.”

“Probably,” she agreed, twitching her whiskers and sniffing around the reading corner. “Let’s look around.” The table in the center had books about students, including the one about Chou already. A note stuck out of one of the books, to keep an eye on the particular student and make sure she kept quiet. Maybe it had to do with that chained up girl?

Joker then gave a little disgusted sound from the fireplace. “I might have it,” she said, uncomfortable with whatever it was.

“What is it?” Ace asked, hurrying to her side and hopping onto the fireplace mantle. There had been a large photo there, of Kamoshida styling himself as an intellectual in this reading corner. Behind it, there was a numerical keypad with a card by it. “Hmm, it’s higher tech than normal, but it could be. What’s on the card?”

“A hint to the password, maybe,” Joker said, sliding the card over. “The clues are pretty bad; I would have rather not seen this, but…”

For instance, the very first clue was ‘Age when I lost my virginity’. “What, really?” Ace asked in shock, doing her best to keep quiet. But she wanted to yell at the ghost Kamoshida for making them think about this.

“I know part of the password already,” she said, pointing out the statement ‘the oldest a woman can be attractive’. “The one teacher said it, twenty-three. But it seems like we’d have to research the rest of it here.” She scowled, not looking forward to that.

“Uh, that’s a lot of books to search,” she said, taking the clue card. “There should be some way to narrow it down, but uh, I’m not sure how.”

“If this was a real library, I’d have some ideas,” Joker said. “How about we get to the safe room so I can go back to the Velvet Room? Then we’ll brainstorm some better way to get this information without spending too much time in here.”

“Sounds good to me.”

* * *

Moving between safe areas wasn’t that hard; it was manipulating the maps that Third Eye gave her, changing the idea of where they were. The door to the Velvet Room was just like the one in Shibuya, right in front of the drawbridge that represented the stairs into Shujin. “Can you see this one?” Joker asked Ace.

She shook her head. “No, although there’s clearly something there.”

Justine was by the door, seemingly making notes with her clipboard. “The entrance used to be visible to any Persona user,” she explained. “But things changed. Now one must be invited by means of a contract, or imprisoned by contract in your case. You appear to have fulfilled our request. Very well, come inside. Your partner will need to stay out but we shouldn’t be long.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Joker told Ace, then smiled and made a cute hand wave. “See ya later alligator.”

“Uh, Joker?” Ace asked, looking puzzled. “That’s not like you.”

“I didn’t switch off Pixie after the last battle,” she said, shifting her mask. “It was me, just filtered through her.”

“Guess we’ll have to get used to that,” she said.

“Let’s go, there’s much to discuss,” Justine said, already having the barred door open.

Joker passed through the door, entering a blue fog. Her outfit flickered into the prisoner’s garb; chains clamped onto her wrists and ankles as they materialized. Before the fog cleared, something yanked on the chains and dropped her down. The chains ignited with blue flames and stretched out into the fog as she braced herself for a landing. A stone floor met her feet and hands; the plank bed appeared by her, but other parts of the prison were scattered apart as if frozen in an explosion.

Arsene was in the cell too, leaning against the unbuilt wall with his wings folded up behind him. “We don’t have long before the wardens will discover us. But I have to ask: are we going full in with cheating this Game?”

“I don’t know how we’d cheat aside from guest partners because I don’t know the rules,” Chou said.

“That’s one point in favor of cheating,” Arsene said, putting his hand under his chin thoughtfully. “Another point: other Players have died already in this Game. And a third point: the Game Master is someone who can threaten that Lars character. I am connected to your unconscious mind, so I can tell that he is beyond human comprehension. That has greatly lessened over time, especially in the past few decades as human knowledge expands continually. Yet he is still beyond that.”

Hearing those points brought up another one to her. “And that Metaverse Navigator is a tool for the game being run by someone who might also be beyond human comprehension. These tutorials don’t care for my safety.”

“Or your sanity,” he said. “With all this in mind, shall we cheat the hell out of all that we can to annoy the Game Master?”

The Velvet Room was coming together; the round carpet outside had appeared. Feel that thrill from first summoning Arsene, Chou grinned. “Sure, let’s do that.”

Arsene chuckled. “Excellent. I’ve already got an idea. They’re going to teach you about fusing Personas. Think of it as discarding current traits for stronger or more mature ones. As you said to Ace, we’re filters to your true self to deal with the outer world, mere figments of yourself. Although, that doesn’t count for myself.” He pulled on a chain near him. “We’re linked as more than a Persona and a true self.”

Looking at a chain on her, she asked, “Are you really Arsene? I mean, I’ve never read about you.”

“Knowing about us is not a requirement for figments from the sea of souls to respond to someone,” he said. “We’ll have more time later if you’re still curious about me. Now, they’ll likely pressure you to use me in fusion now. They can’t get rid of me; I will always be by your side even if I become unavailable to summon. Don’t fuse me first. Instead, find the fusion with me that will result in a Persona you already have. Take that Persona and fuse them away, then use me to try fusing that one back.” He looked over as the door to her cell clacked into place. “Trust me, I will always be by your side.” He then vanished, taking the fiery chains with him.

Once the Velvet Room was fully together, the three staff members appeared. Caroline quickly hit the bars with her baton. “Hey! Where have you been, Inmate?”

“You should have come straight here,” Justine said calmly. If she was concerned at all, it didn’t show one bit on her face or in her voice.

“I tripped,” Chou said as the closest thing to explain what happened. “But I got here.”

“Never mind that for now,” Igor said from his table. “We’ll have to be more careful to make sure you come straight here through those doors later on.”

“Right,” Chou said.

Igor nodded. “Since you got here, it is time to reveal the purpose of this place. Negotiating with Shadows to bring them to your side is useful, but there is a limit to how many Personas even a wild card such as yourself can have. Their powers also grow more slowly than yours, eventually stagnating with what they can develop on their own. To that purpose, we allow you to execute Personas to create stronger new ones.”

“You may think of it as fusing the traits and powers of both Persona together, uniting them into one,” Justine said. “That is how you can attain stronger Personas than those you can recruit.”

“Not making use of this properly is going to be a good way to fall behind,” Caroline added.

“It would be better done then explained, so consult with these two on what fusions are possible,” Igor said, waving to the two girls. “And it would be best done with the weaker Personas in your possession, such as Arsene.”

“Allow me to show the calculations on what can be fused using Arsene as one component,” Justine said, making a short note before showing her the top page on her clipboard.

Right away, Chou saw the last Persona she’d recruited, Silky. That was Arsene and Bicorn. The list showed odd marks that should indicate something, given that they were by the Persona names. In the list of results, there was one Agathion (Chariot). “What does this mean?” she asked, pointing out the word ‘Chariot’.

“All Personas are classed according to the Major Arcana of the Tarot,” Justine recited. “Their Arcana class will reveal a tendency to prefer certain talents or skills, if one is experienced enough to understand this list. The Arcana can also be used to describe the traits and ideals of humans. Someone who is described as a Chariot person would feel an affinity towards Chariot Personas and find them easier to control.”

“You’re a Fool, so you have a neutral affinity towards any class of Persona,” Caroline said. “Not that that would affect what you’re doing since you can control any Persona within the reach of your power. But don’t go calling on Personas out of your reach! We’ll warn you if you’re trying to call on one that would ruin you.”

“All right,” Chou said, then pointed out Silky. “What Personas can I fuse with this one? Just curious.”

“Let me see,” Justine said, taking back the clipboard, making another mark, then offering it again. “Here you go.”

Although she only made one mark, the list was almost entirely different. One Persona that could come from Silky was Genbu; it seemed pretty good according to Justine’s projections. “Silky would be useful, but…” she said, then pointed out the fusion for Genbu, “I’d like to get this Persona.”

“As you wish,” Justine said. Meanwhile, Caroline snapped her fingers.

Igor was suddenly gone, as was his table. In its place were two gleaming guillotines. There, the twins brought out Silky and Jack’o’lantern to the guillotines. There was some kind of trick with one large blue sheet that ended with the two Personas wrapped up under the blades. It was gruesome, but Chou watched while the two were beheaded into clouds of dust. After all, these spirits were incomplete masks. The dust remaining shone as the two gathered together.

The form of a tortoise with a snake tail came out of the dust. “So you’ve called me from the sea of souls,” Genbu said. “Sure, I'll guide you on your path.”

When Genbu’s spirit fused into her mask, Igor and his desk reappeared. “Do you grasp this ritual now?”

“More or less,” Chou said.

He nodded. “Good. I will continue to observe the path of your rehabilitation. I hope you freely make use of our execution process to advance forward. Carry on.”

Justine looked up at her. “If you wish to recall a Persona that you have executed or released, speak with Caroline and they can be called out from the Compendium of Souls.”

“There’ll be a fee for that, so don’t expect any charity,” Caroline said. “Right now, your limits are six Persona in stock. Work hard at your rehabilitation and we might agree to let you house more within your heart.”

“Is there any other Persona you wish to execute?” Justine asked, as calmly as always.

“Perhaps, I’d like to check,” Chou said.

As it turned out, fusing the other two from her original six would create Genbu too. Getting other Persona might take reclaiming those she'd fused. She acted like she was reviewing her options, then chose to fuse Arsene and Bicorn. Justine looked at it, then back at her. “Are you sure? You’ve already contracted this Persona.”

“She’ll be stronger than before,” she lied.

“True,” Justine said, then nodded at Caroline to call back the guillotines.

Instead of going right to his place, Arsene appeared outside of Chou’s cell. The fiery chains were back to connect them. He gave a chuckle, then said, “This is how things should be; one should always strive towards growth. But I will not forget our vow. No matter what may come, I will always be by your side.” He gave a wink while still looking at her, then spread his wings and flew over fearlessly behind one of the guillotines.

Chou trusted him and watched as the twins set up the guillotines. I am thou, thou art I… the blades screeched to a halt two-thirds of the way down the rails and jammed shut. There was an awkward silence in the room as the twins looked up at the jammed blade, then at each other. After a moment, they both pulled large chainsaws out of nowhere and finished the job.

When the dust gathered and glowed, it erupted into blue flames. Black wings unfurled to reveal Arsene. “I have returned,” he said, calm and smug. “Our vow shall continue on as before.”

“Certainly,” Chou said as his spirit fused back into her mask.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Igor said as he reappeared. “But accidents can occur during executions. Your Persona may have gained different powers than expected as a result.”

As he said, Arsene’s skills had changed. He still had Eiga, but now had a matching Bless spell of Kouha and Third Eye out of nowhere. It seemed like they’d gotten away with this first cheat. “Sure, stuff happens.”

On leaving the Velvet Room, she found herself in Joker’s outfit again. Ace was nearby, practicing her swordplay. “Ah, you’re back!” she said, finishing a trick by catching her sword.

“Any problems?” Joker asked.

She shook her head. “Not now, but you looked like you were spacing out there. Since there’s another door in Shibuya, I think there’s something I ought to teach you before you go using this place outside a Palace. That can wait, though. I thought of something that should help us with the library puzzle. Let’s go back.”

Once they were back in the library safe room, Ace brought out the clue card. Joker leaned against the table and asked, “What’s your idea?”

“Well that young Kamoshida just now changed the puzzle, right?” she explained. “Which means that he must have accessed all this information very recently. When I sense around this library with my whiskers, I can tell some books are dustier than others. That’s information that’s stored but not recently thought of. If I can sniff out books that were more recently opened, that should narrow down the amount of them we need to check.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

Out in the library, she tried to sense the same thing with Third Eye. It was subtle, but the books Ace picked out were lighter than others to her extra sight. Not every marked book had the answers they were looking for. For instance, all books about the current members of the volleyball team were marked but no info about the boys mattered. They did need to look up Ann’s panty size, among other perverse matters. It become clearer that this password system might be something Kamoshida really used, with relevant information underlined in the books.

Checking for a book’s usage let them figure out the password in six books rather than dozens. It opened the moving bookcase as expected, allowing them into a hidden room. On one glance, the altar seemed solemn and serious: thirteen candles were arranged in a circle, all above a star-based diagram. However, photos of high school girls were pinned all over the walls and spread on the star diagram. There were everyday photos in school uniforms, fantasized photos like from the harem room, and distressing photos that shifted from a girl’s real reaction to a fantasized reaction.

Joker tried to avoid looking too closely at the photos after seeing one of the last kind. But, she did spot Ann, Shiho, and the chained girl in the harem room in many photos. That girl might be the one who gave her the request. There should be a key to move on… and, was that a voodoo doll? It was an old-fashioned straw doll without a face, but there was a nametag: Yuuki Mishima. The long pins and fabric tied like a gag felt like an intent to silence.

“Ah, here we go,” Ace said, heading over to a bookshelf to pick out a medal. “This looks like the right size and shape. Let’s hurry outta here, this is another awful room.”

“Hang on a moment,” Joker asked, picking up the doll to pull the pins out. “A Palace like this exerts a negative aura on the real-world counterpart, right?”

“That’s my theory, and most don’t notice it if it’s true.” She came over to get a better look.

“Then would a doll like this work?” she asked, showing her the voodoo doll and setting down the pins. “I’ve read about these; you send curses to a person by harming the doll. The target will end up hurt in ways that match what you do to the doll.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Ah, then yes, that might affect the real world! Once you get the gag and pins except the nametag out, let’s take the doll out of here. If you take the name off outside the Palace in a safe spot, then it should release any ill intentions on an unconscious level from Kamoshida to this student. I think, anyhow, that’s what I feel.”

Joker nodded and tucked the doll into her coat pocket, where the things from her schoolbag went. They then left the creepy altar room; a switch on the side closed it without needing to use the password again.


	10. temptation::asmodeus

4/18

Once out of the library, they arrived in front of a narrow spiral staircase that headed both up and down. More candles were on the walls to light the space. Those candles alternated with portraits of high school girls that toed the boundaries of porn or crossed right over without shame. “Seems like he mostly thinks of himself or girls,” Joker said. It was still disgusting. But after seeing so much of it, the shock had worn off.

“But without respecting the girls as people, don’t forget that,” Ace said.

“There’s no way I couldn’t,” she said. “Which way do you sense the Treasure?”

“Hmmm…” she turned around, sniffing and twitching her nose. Then she pointed up above the door. “That way. We’ve still got a ways to go to get there. You doing okay?”

Joker nodded. “Sure, and you?”

“Fine and dandy,” Ace said, hopping up the stairs. “Keep your senses peeled or we won’t have much time to react to Shadows seeing us.”

There was a tough Shadow at the landing on top of the stairs, a knight on a horse of all things. To distract it, Ace used her slingshot again to knock a pebble into the wall behind the knight. That let them ambush the knight and take care of it easier than fighting fair. Past the door, they got put outside again. There was a ripple revealing a real world counterpart that Joker hadn’t seen before. Perhaps part of the school roof was accessible? Unlike the school, there was a tall stone tower on the other side of the opening. Giant flags fluttered on both sides of this rooftop courtyard.

In the courtyard itself, a haphazard arrangement of crates gave a little maze for several knight shadows to patrol. Third Eye indicated that these were powerful ones, their auras surrounded by red flames. Another knight with a red aura came in from across the courtyard. “Look sharp, men!” he called. “This is the king’s most private grounds. We cannot let intruders like those from the other day get this far!”

“They wouldn’t get this far without us hearing about it,” one of the other knights said.

“Are you using that as an excuse to slack off?!” His voice was sharp and bellowing, much like Kamoshida’s in the gym.

“No sir, just saying common sense.”

“Besides, what kind of thief could get past us?”

“None!”

The knight who’d joined them saluted to that. “Right, none! Still, no slacking off!”

“We could defeat them once you have more experience in battle,” Ace whispered. “But not now; even they’d give me trouble. There’s a way around them, maybe a couple if we’re daring.” She didn’t tell the way, but her gaze was up with the flags.

Looking up there, Joker noted piles of crates leading up toward the parapets. It looked like flat stones up there, and if one followed the parapets… there were some structures by the tower that led up to a large window. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it might be completely open. “That way?” she asked, pointing out the route.

“Right, good eye.”

“I just looked where you were looking,” she said, nudging her.

“Heh, I’ll give you that. Let’s get moving before they notice us.”

It took a minute for them to slip into the shadows, get by the numerous guards walking around, and hop up the crates when not noticed. But once they got up there, they were free to leap right across the parapets like action heroes. The wind was making the flags and her coat flutter, but it didn’t matter. As long as she thought of it as a dream, she was free to scale up to the window with Ace, just like a badass. This Palace was disgusting, but the moment made her feel like this was a great decision.

The moment after getting back inside did its best to make her think otherwise. There was a purple haze to the air that had a disrespectful feeling to it (was that so or just her imagination?). Although a tower, walls partitioned off pieces of it to make it as claustrophobic as the dark passage. Parts of the tiled floor were jutting out like spikes or simply floating around with darker purple haze around them. The area they’d entered had no doors visible, simply stairs winding up and down the outer walls. From stairs leading down from the window, it might be a place someone would make proclamations down to the upper courtyard.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Joker said quietly, feeling like being too loud might disrupt the haze and draw attention to them.

“The distortion is more powerful in here than anywhere else in this Palace,” Ace said, disturbed by it. She even clung to the wall a moment. “It’s barely holding together in a rational manner.”

“Is it because this place isn’t like anywhere in the school?” she guessed.

“That might be the case,” she said, moving further in. “Ugh…”

“I feel like the very air here is trying to disrespect us,” Joker said. “But that’s what the will of rebellion must be for. We can keep going, right?”

“Of course,” Ace said, calming down at her encouragement. “I do agree with the disrespect here. Perhaps it’s because he sees women as objects of lust and little more; we’re getting to his innermost thoughts and desires, so there’s less filtering for politeness.”

“Then we’ll keep in mind that we don’t care about his sexism and will steal his Treasure to get rid of it,” she said.

“Heh, you got it! Now, onward and upward.”

On the next floor, the staircase ended. The room in between was split by a wall that had gaps in it here and there. Through that, another staircase could be seen. The half they were in was guarded by another horse-mounted knight who paid little heed to the nonsense of getting a horse partway up a tower. The horseman called a pair of owl men from the other room to back him up. Once they took out the mounted knight, Joker was able to use Zio to kill one of the owl men and intimidate the other into becoming the Persona Andras. A Succubus ended up joining her too, after the Shadow had ambushed them while they’d been climbing the stairs.

The next floor had another candlelit shrine in it, arranged around a large portrait of a high school girl dressed up like an empress in a fine kimono and jewels. She resembled Shiho some, especially in her hair. “A third shrine, huh?” Ace said, looking it over. “It may be a way he rationalizes his desires.”

“Maybe he keeps a real one, or had at one point?” Joker suggested.

“That would be creepy if he did, but not unthinkable,” she said.

“That’s not important,” someone said, coming up beside them. It was the young Kamoshida, his attention on the shrine. “This is my first queen; I played nice trying to get her, as that was all I knew. She continually turned down my requests for a date, claiming that she only wanted to be friends.”

“And why would we care?” Joker asked. They didn’t need to know the reasons behind his actions when they hurt so many people.

“I’ll repay you for the time if you at least hear these thoughts out,” he said, unconcerned. “For I had a plan: I would become a champion to earn her favor. But by the time I became one, she was married with a young child, had gained weight, and lost all that made her beautiful. Not only that, but she got stolen away by a wimp of man, one with no talent in sports. He had been the butt of every joke in school, yet she chose him over me. This is why I do not hesitate with other girls, so I do not lose them when they are at their best.” He then turned to them. “With that, I am done speaking for him. I would rather speak for you now.”

“What do you mean?” Ace asked. “Who are you anyhow?”

The ghost waved his hand, fading into a red glow. After a moment, he reformed into herself in a yukata. Was that…? Yes, that was how she’d gone to a summer festival last year, toying with an androgynous look. “You aren’t of interest to me,” the ghostly being said dismissively to Ace. But there was something predatory to her eyes when she turned to Joker. “But you, Trickster, you seem quite promising. Suguru is toeing a dangerous line right now and he knows it. One reveal could trigger a cascade of others and nothing will save him from that. The only question is whether his fall will be covered up or if it will be the scandal of the year. As it stands, I believe the outcome is weighted by your actions.”

“I am going to reveal his sins, preferably from Kamoshida himself,” Joker said, feeling like she should be straight to the point with this being.

She shrugged at that. “I don’t care what happens to him should you succeed. But I do care about what happens to me.” Taking out a paper fan and opening it up near her chin, she said, “I am one from the sea of souls, but not a region you would know. I am Asmodeus and I can make your dreams come true. With my help, you could find the love of your life and win their loyalty easily. Or if you don’t care for loyalty, I can grant you gifts to become a peerless femme fatale that none can resist. Everyone will be tripping over themselves to please you; I am certain of this because you have a natural charm that needs more polish.”

“You talk an awful lot,” Joker said. “And a lot of nasty stuff at that, so no.”

“I merely speak for a person’s inner self,” Asmodeus said. “You don’t need to be ashamed around me. Actually, your eyes roam around a lot. You admire many people, sometimes intensely. And you adore having them admire you, especially when they’re being bashful to your face because they can’t speak their own feelings. Those kind of feelings have never lasted, not on your part and not on theirs. You worry sometimes about someone actually asking you out; then you’d have to commit and stop being frivolous.”

“You really speak far too much,” Joker said, shaking her head. “That’s true, but I’ll handle that myself when it comes up.”

Asmodeus still smiled and gave a flirtatious wave of her fan; it was eerie seeing that out of her mirror image. “Heh, but I must explain myself. Trust me, humans make matters around passion complicated whereas I make them simple. I really can allow you to claim the passion of everyone you desire.”

“No, I’m not anything like Kamoshida,” she said.

“Hey wait, are you a demon?” Ace asked, drawing her sword to be ready for a fight. “You blend in well. Are you possessing Kamoshida?”

Shaking her head, Asmodeus said, “Nonsense, I was invited in. I give him a little edge here and there, but I don’t make him do anything. Suguru was the one who made his soul a comfortable place for me to hide.”

“If this soul is comfortable for you, then I really want nothing to do with you,” Joker said, taking out her gun as well.

“And why would that be?” she asked, fading into mist.

“He sees everyone around him as slaves or trash, not like real people at all,” Joker said, reminded of the ridiculous cognitions she’d encountered here.

“That’s right!” Ace agreed, bouncing in place. “What they feel doesn’t matter to him as long as he gets what he wants.”

Asmodeus faded from sight, but she… no, it was still there, visible as a dark smudge where it had stood. “Why should what others feel matter? How do you know that they feel anything? Perhaps the whole world around you is merely a product of your cognition. Perhaps you are the only real being in existence with everything else being produced by your imagination.”

“That’s stupid,” Joker said, although there was a part of her mind that wondered, what if? That was a subject that came up often in the field of philosophy. What of the self was real, and what of that outside the self was real…

“Can you prove it’s a stupid idea?” Asmodeus said. “Can you prove that there is anyone else besides yourself?”

Snorting, Joker waved a hand around them. “We’re in the cognition of someone other than me, or Ace. And there are many other layers of cognition around the school. This shows that there are minds other than my own.”

After a moment of quiet, Ace pointed her sword at the dark smudge of Asmodeus. “What, you don’t have any fancy retorts to that?”

When it spoke again, Asmodeus sounded as if they’d insulted it. “Do you know how many people build their sense of self upon those ideas? You’re trampling all over their stability declaring that. Everyone feels that they are most important in their own minds; everyone wants to be the center of everything because their own feelings are central to all they know. Society oppresses the individual enough, so leave others the freedom of their private matters.”

Joker fired her gun at Asmodeus. It did nothing but warn the demon that they both knew where it was. “None of that excuses the things that this coach is doing! And while you say that he’s close to getting into trouble, there’s no telling when that will be. We intend to stop him as soon as we can.”

“Fine, so you won’t invite me in,” Asmodeus said. “But I’m sure another will find your soul quite comfortable, especially with you destroying this man from the inside out.” It then left, heading back to the lower parts of the castle.

“That was certainly a demon,” Ace said, her ears tilted back in annoyance that it had gotten away. “Good thing you resisted it.”

“Is Kamoshida aware of Asmodeus?” Joker asked. “I don’t think people will believe it easily, but I would hate for his actions to be blamed on the demon.”

She gave it a moment’s thought. “Hmm, that’s hard to say. He shouldn’t be aware of the demon haunting his cognition, since it looked and sounded like him. But if he does believe in demons, he might have consciously invited it close and could try to blame it. It seems to be another risk of our mission.”

“Not risk enough to stop,” she said. “We still need to locate the Treasure, so let’s keep going.”

“I agree, let’s go.”

Past the shrine, the next staircase was flanked by a row of pillars. This wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary if the pillars weren’t shaped like near-naked girls in bright pink underwear. It wasn’t even entirely like a girl, just a girl’s torso and butt. Focusing on the Shadows to ignore the pillars, Joker and Ace snuck across the room, only taking out one persistent guard that kept pacing in front of the stairs.

The next level was dense with the fog, now with a pink hue to the purple. Another pair of the naked owlmen dropped down between them, forcing them to fight separately. When the battle was over, Joker used Third Eye to try seeing through the fog. Unfortunately, the fog intruded in on that sight and Ace was nowhere to be found. She moved back to where a pillar was, ready to hide but waiting to see if Ace would find her. Her nose might not be affected.

“What about an unconditional love?” a voice said close behind her, like they were hiding near the same pillar.

Putting a hand on the pillar and getting ready to dart away elsewhere, Joker saw the ghost of Asmodeus by her, still using her form. What was the demon up to? She’d already refused it.

Asmodeus smiled; the fog shimmered around them. “No jealousy, no questions, no doubts, just acceptance, admiration, and adoration. You wouldn’t need to do anything; they’ll listen, spoil you with gifts, give you whatever you want. They’ll believe you and support you no matter what. There’s no one you know like that, not even close. If you work with me, I can give you someone like that. More than one, really, anyone you’d like.”

Joker felt a chill on her skin along with a deep loneliness. At her old school, she’d had many friends. She’d been in a few different clubs figuring out what she wanted to do; she’d tried different part-time jobs and made friends there. But none of them had contacted her while she’d been held by the police. She’d switched her phone number on moving to Tokyo, but they should be able to figure out how to contact her. Not even her parents had contacted her in any way. Her father she could understand since he was always rather distant.

But her mother… well she was so strict, always expressing her disappointment if Chou didn’t meet up to her standards. This was probably another disappointment to her. Her mother probably didn’t hate her; she kept saying that her strictness was for her own good. But in a way, Chou would almost prefer the hate because then she could return that hate. Just disappointment, maybe resignation that she was doomed to be a failure… that made her feel like a failure, like she deserved this probation. That only made her hate herself.

Asmodeus leaned in closer. “You want that, I can feel it. There’s no shame in that. In fact, you deserve it. Be good to yourself; that cat doesn’t need to know anything. I won’t bring you harm. Every choice will be your own.”

“Can you really do that?” Joker asked. It sounded good, too good to trust.

“Of course, it’s one of many things I am capable of,” Asmodeus said. “I will stay with you and won’t let you down.”

Although it pained her to deny that offer, she shook her head. “I don’t want to end up like the coach here.”

“This has nothing to do with me, as I said.” The demon gestured up to the pillar they were by. “I can speak for him, voice the thoughts that even he doesn’t hear in his mind. But everything here was formed by his choices, by his perspectives.”

“But you don’t stop him from hurting others,” Joker said. “You don’t care about others; it’s just about having a soul to reside in, isn’t it? I doubt you can really give me this offer.”

“But only you and I would matter,” Asmodeus said.

“That’s still based on fallacy,” she said. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then you’re fine with being lonely forever?” the demon asked. “You’re passing up an opportunity that few people get.” The demon shimmered, reappearing as a more traditional demon with a variety of horns on its head and shoulders. For some reason, it chuckled. “You’re still a Trickster, though. Somebody would love to have you as a partner. I’ll give you a bit of help, just a tiny thing. But when you come to challenge my current partner, I won’t give you any quarter.” The demon touched its face before vanishing into the shimmering fog.

Something tingled between her eyes. Joker put a hand up and realized that her mask extended further down her cheeks and nose. Had the demon changed anything else? She wasn’t sure.

A loud whisper came out of the fog. “Hey!” Ace then appeared by her. “Sorry, this fog is so disorienting and I feel weird, like someone’s trying to pet me without permission.”

“Right, this place got worse,” Joker said. “Does your wind spell do anything to it?”

She shook her head. “No, just adds some current. What about Agi? Can you still use that?”

“Sure,” she said, swapping to Succubus to cast the spell. The fog got burned up in the fire. But once the fire was gone, the fog billowed in to fill the space back up. It gave them enough visibility to move from pillar to pillar until they located the stairs.

The fog lightened up enough on the next floor that she didn’t have to keep using the spell to get them through. It was mostly gone within two floors, leaving them in a walkway with grand windows out into a dark night. At the other end, there was a welcome safe room but no stairs. A wooden bridge across a tall room was their only way across the tower; the pink-purple fog came up to just below the bridge, rippling like ocean waves. A bust of Kamoshida stood outside the hall, like the switches in the dungeons. And once they stepped foot and paw onto the bridge, giant axes came swinging down to block their way.

Joker hopped back in time to avoid the nearest blade. “Wow, one of these?”

“It’s quite the classic trap,” Ace said, in admiration. “But it’ll chop my tail off if we try to get by; they’re going really fast.”

Nodding, she went to the bust and tried pulling on its jaw, like she’d seen in the dungeon. Nothing happened; it felt loose, like it wasn’t hooked to anything. “Guess that was too easy. Although, this one has gaps for eyes.”

“Hmm, this one might have eyes as keys,” she said, patting the bust herself. “But the Treasure’s not too far away now, two or three more levels by my guess. The keys might be held by some high level guards nearby.”

“Down below us?” she asked. There weren’t any Shadows on this level, but they’d avoided a number of strong ones on the last floor.

“We have to fight them now, so be careful,” Ace said. “But the ones with keys should stand out to our senses. Let’s go.”

“We’ve got this,” Joker said, partly to reassure herself of that.

On the floor below, she had noted a gold-armored knight among the steel-armored ones. It had been out of the way before, so it had gotten ignored. Now they had to fight another owlman to get a clear path. Fortunately, it begged for its life and bribed them with money to leave it alone. The gold knight turned out to be an archangel, one that was powerful enough that Third Eye suggested she could not control it as a Persona yet. When it charged up, Ace warned her to go on the defensive. That was worth it as the archangel’s next attack felt like she was getting hit with a sledgehammer rather than a sword.

She managed to get the archangel panicked, a relief of its relentless attacks that may have allowed them to win against it and the other archangel who held onto the second eye key. Back upstairs, Joker put the eyes in the bust to get the jaw switch to work. It stopped the giant blades, but the eyes shifted to look at her and made a ticking sound. “We might be timed,” Joker said.

“Roger that!” They hurried across the bridge. Ace cast a wind spell ahead of them, causing a surprised yelp from a hidden guard. With that, they could still ambush the guard even as it had been waiting.

“Nice one, hitting it before we even saw it,” Joker said.

“That kind of trap is a high probability with how the blades on the bridge were set up,” Ace said, looking back to where blades were swinging again. “A phantom thief should do their best to expect such traps so they don’t get caught.”

“Got it.”

The stairs to the next level were scattered all over the floor. Joker went over to see if there was a trick to it. As she did, the stairs lifted up right into place. They dropped as soon as they were passed over too. For some reason, the stairs didn’t account for Ace being there. Joker paused on one to let Ace get ahead of her when a stair nearly dropped right below her paws. The next stair didn’t even lift up until Joker started back up.

“Man, I’m glad I ran into you now,” Ace said before they opened the door. “I’m not sure how I would’ve activated those stairs. Maybe some other roadblocks I ran into in other Palaces will clear up if I bring you there.”

“Sure, we can search for them later,” Joker said. “I’d like to see how this is going to go first.”

“Understandable.” She put a paw to her nose. “Okay, it’s this level, next level, and the Treasure is going to be on the level past that. I think there’s even a safe room closer to the Treasure; we should press on and see what the top of the tower is like.”

“I don’t know if I can use much more magic, but sure, we can make it that far,” Joker said, using Third Eye to check past the door. “I think there’s a strong Shadow past here, though.”

“It might be a last guard before the Treasure,” Ace said. “At least I hope it’s the last big guard. You have any more drinks or snacks? They might restore your energy for magic.”

On searching her pockets, she found a bottled water that Ace seemed sure would help as suggested. The Shadows weren’t patrolling around this staircase and this side of the door, so she sat down for a short break. “When we got separated, Asmodeus came back and spoke to me.”

“I don’t remember smelling him there,” she said, her ears tilting down in worry. “You need to be careful with beings like that. Demons are different than Shadows. Remember, Shadows are bits and pieces of the human psyche. Even a person’s unconscious self can turn into a Shadow if it is given enough power. But demons are their own beings. They can take forms of mythological beings just like Personas and Shadows; sometimes they are those mythological figures. Most demons are malicious beings and want to corrupt the humans they contact.”

“Don’t worry, I refused them again,” she said, then touched her mask. “Asmodeus did make my mask bigger for some reason. Said it was a gift to show that they accepted my refusal peacefully.”

Ace came to her side and twitched her whiskers. “Hmmm… I don’t sense a curse on you. It’s strange that they accepted a refusal peacefully. Something’s up; you’ll have to be alert to anything that changes for you.”

“I will.”

The water did make her feel a little refreshed, more ready for the potential fight behind the door. The knight in the room wore dark red armor, its aura encased in red flames. “What are you fools doing poking around here? This is the king’s most sacred place, the seat of power and life! You will not pass through these gates!”

Said gates were shaped like muscular human legs, bare with nothing joining them together. Was this what it seemed to be? While Joker shook her head, Ace drew her sword. “That’s what you think! Make way, or we’ll make our own.”

“Not a chance! I’m ready for action!” The knight burst into a fountain of blood and smoke, reforming into a weird green blob that Joker tried not to think about too much. “I will pierce through and beat you down!”

Like the angel, the blob kept charging up for strong attacks. It got fixated on her for some reason, never once attacking Ace. Joker alternated between dodging out of the blob’s attacks and trying out various attacks. Bufu finally gave her a way to stun the blob, plus Ace took some extra time between healing to make precision strikes. Between them, they defeated the blob and were able to move on to the next set of rising stairs.

The next floor was taken up by a throne room even grander than the entrance hall. Over a dozen guards were lined up in the room, kneeling in deference to Kamoshida lounging on his throne. The safe room was in the hall outside the throne room, giving them another place to warp to. Ace stopped her from leaving the safe room on hearing the knights march out. Then more marched in, enough that Joker could hear them with her ear pressed to the door. Once the transfer stopped, they snuck out.

Kamoshida’s voice echoed throughout the floor once they left the safe room. “Listen up! A few guards have vanished on their patrols. We can’t have such negligence in our security! I’ve already got search crews out to see where the missing guards are in case they’re slacking off. But their absence may mean that we have rats sneaking around again! Be vigilant on your lookouts! Guard every doorway and make sure any intruders must pass through your sights if such rats are around!”

While he spoke, Ace’s attention went upward. Joker noticed too that the voice was echoing from above. There were two windows up there, lining up with other windows to let sunlight stream into the throne room. Hadn’t it been night on the floors below? Joker supposed that was more evidence of the Metaverse being like a dream, where time and logic didn’t matter. The way up to the windows was climbing up the torso pillars standing on either side of the doorway. Another thing to grudgingly tolerate; they got up to the left window and snuck in.

A railing on the right was decent cover from sight of those below, especially with the sprawling vines and flowers that were in huge trophy cups along the way. More of the torso pillars were below, along with a massive pair of legs straddling the doorway with the waist above the ceiling. The chandeliers glittered with gold and crystal; the supports seemed like a good place to perch and look over the throne room below. Behind the throne itself, a curvy staircase led up to a pair of ornate white doors. On watching the guards below to make sure their attention was on Kamoshida, Joker and Ace slipped into the doors and closed them softly behind them.

The room immediately there was spartan and imposing. Large weapons were on the wall. If there was a guard here, they could take any weapon they pleased to make a last stand. There was no guard at the moment, leaving them free to enter the room with the Treasure. And it was exactly the kind of treasure room that one might expect in a castle like this. Piles of gold coins and jewels were left all over the floor. However, stepping on the coins showed that they were stone carvings. There might be gold paint and jewels in there, but it wasn’t the massive fortune it appeared to be.

Curious, Joker knelt down and tapped a ruby on the floor. It had a plastic sound, like fake jewels on a child’s toy. While she was checking that out, Ace went over to a smoky orb hovering in the center of the room. “Here we go, here’s the Treasure. Stay near the door; I’m going to search the room for traps.”

“Sure,” she said, getting up and standing by the door. She kept Third Eye active so she could sense into the room between here and the throne room. Thinking back to some books about castles she’d read as a kid, she checked for arrow slits and holes that oil could be poured through. Perhaps holes for poisonous gas too… there didn’t seem to be anything like that.

“It’s surprising, but this place is safe now,” Ace said. “Of course, we were careful not to raise the security level much. It will grow more dangerous when we send the calling card, since that’s to make the Palace owner aware that their Treasure can be stolen. Traps may appear then; I’ve got some good ideas of where.”

“Are we going to have to fight the Palace owner?” Joker asked. “Or that demon?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it’s a strong possibility.”

“I wanted to invite some of his victims in to fight him,” she said. “They deserve such a chance, plus they could be a distraction while we make off with the Treasure.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Ace said, coming over. “Well then, let’s see how the app allows us to awaken their Personas tomorrow. Once we have a good distraction team and get prepared, we can send the calling card and make the theft.”

Joker nodded, then looked back to the fake treasures. “Right. So everything’s symbolic around here because it’s the unconscious mind. The rest of the treasures in here are fake.”

“It could indicate some insecurity that helps fuel his distortions,” Ace said. “Not that it would excuse him from the crimes he’s committed.”

“The knowledge could be useful to us,” she said. “As could taking a few extra battles on these floors. I’d like to see if I can recruit a couple more Personas and fuse more strong ones. I don’t want to lose on my first job as a phantom thief.”

“Well don’t wear yourself out,” she said. “But we can keep training for a little while. If I notice that you’re getting tired, though, I will make you leave.”

“That’s fine.”

When they got back to Leblanc, there were a few customers in. Still, Sojiro raised an eyebrow on seeing her. “You seem tired.”

“One of my friends convinced me to try out running,” Chou explained. Enough time had passed that it seemed reasonable. “It was tougher than I expected to keep up with him.”

“The exercise should be good for you,” he said. “Here, I’ll make some coffee for you.”

“Thanks, I’ll be back down,” she said, giving him a smile as she passed by to get upstairs. She changed into more casual clothes, then headed down to get a quick dinner and the coffee.

Once some customers left, Sojiro asked, “How’s school treating you?”

“It’s tough in ways I don’t like,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “And easy where I’d rather it be tough. But it’s still early in the year, that could change. At least I’ve got some friends.”

He nodded in agreement. “That usually makes things better. Just don’t get lax because you think things are easy now. You won’t be ready when they challenge you.”

“Sure, I’ll just keep studying psychology in the meantime so my mind stays sharp,” Chou said.

“Hey, I was just wondering about something,” Sojiro said, scratching his chin. “Do you have a photographic memory? You certainly learned the school rules quickly.”

“Sort of,” she said. “If it’s something I’ve read, I’ll remember it. Sometimes I can even tell you what page something is on, if I’ve read the book recently. But it’s not a perfect photographic memory, especially outside text.”

“It still sounds impressive,” Sojiro said. “I bet most students would love to learn things just by reading them.”

She shrugged. “Maybe, but it tends to make lectures boring.”

“I was wondering because I’ve known some people with perfect photographic memories,” he said. “You remind me a bit of them.”

On looking at him, Chou could tell that it was a good thing. Perhaps he’d warm up to her if she shared some of the things she learned. He might also respond well to some quirkiness. “Wanna test me on the book I’m reading now?”

He did smile briefly. “Nah, you look tired. I’ll just take your word for it.”

“If you want to another time, just let me know,” she said, smiling back.

Back upstairs, she pulled out the voodoo doll from her bag. So taking the nametag off in the Metaverse might release Yuuki from these ill intentions… but couldn’t this kind of thing be used for good too? On a whim, Chou took the butterfly pin off her school blazer and stuck it onto the doll’s nametag. She’d want to take the pin back for school tomorrow. But if this could send some blessings Yuuki’s way, it’d be worthwhile to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm amused that this was posted on a Friday the thirteenth and is the first appearance of a demon.


	11. Ace of Wands

4/19

In class, Chou figured out that the boy behind her was called Seong-Min, mostly because the annoying Mr. Ushimaru hurled a piece of chalk at him for falling asleep in class. The reactions of the other students indicated this was a normal thing from this teacher. It might be difficult to dodge, but she was fairly certain she could if she caught on quick. Otherwise, science class was again interesting for the melodramatic teacher and the day went on as normal.

After classes, she met up with her friends to start up math tutoring. They were on some basic algebra, something she’d never had a problem with. “Getting the right order of operations is key,” Chou said, picking out a problem from homework due tomorrow. “Here, number three is simple.”

“How is that simple?” Ryuji asked, frowning at the problem. “It’s got all that garbage in the parentheses.”

“Yes, but it’s got a straight answer on the other side of the equation,” Chou said. “Once you sort out how one side works, the variables are simple to find.”

“So what is the order of operations here?” Ann asked.

“Isn’t it solve the parentheses first?” Shiho asked.

“That’s right,” Chou said. “It showed up in the lectures several times.”

“Well, I don’t always listen to lectures,” Ann admitted. “It’s just hard to care about school sometimes.”

“Right, especially with this crazy sort of math,” Ryuji said. “Who would need to solve complicated stuff like this in real life? You only really need the basic stuff.”

Chou shrugged. “I’ll give you that; a lot of these could be done more simply if they were real problems. But working your brain can be like working your muscles; you gotta keep at it until you can do things without effort.”

“The brain is not a muscle,” Ryuji said.

“Yours certainly isn’t,” Shiho teased him.

“It’s a thinking muscle,” Chou said, tapping her head.

She had to further break down some of the equations to show them how to work through the whole problem. Shiho and Ann picked up on her methods after a few problems and were able to finish the rest of their homework on their own. But Ryuji had more trouble since he got intimidated by the equations and was quicker to give up. Thankfully, the other girls helped to push him to at least complete their homework; he started to grasp the concept by the end of it, so Chou invented a few more problems for him to practice on.

With the tutoring done, it was time to work on the calling card. In the school’s neighborhood, there was a print shop that offered a student discount. She’d earned an unexpected amount of money in fighting through the castle, plus there were the various jewels and antiques like silver cutlery that could be sold for even more. That let her chose more dramatic means. While there was a clerk on duty, the print shop had optional self-service. Good.

She picked a work table blocked off by a large printer, so she could put her school bag in the chair next to her. Morgana poked her head and front paws out. “A print shop? What’re you doing here?”

“Putting together the calling card,” Chou whispered, taking her phone out of her pocket. “At least part of it. Here, what do you think of this design?” She showed off a picture she’d taken of one of her drawings, the red top hat with a mask designed like a logo. With a drawing app, she’d added a purple background with a blue flaming Z design, then cleaned up the logo itself.

“Wow, that’s snazzy,” Morgana said excitedly. “Are you going to write the warning on the back like a postcard?”

“Yes, but I’m going to do better than that,” she said with a smile. She set to the printer to use a glossy card. “I’m making one original; it needs to be good quality, so I’m going ahead with this. Once I get the message on it, we’ll copy it a bunch of times on cheaper cards to make a big deal out of it. The trick is going to be getting it into school unnoticed.”

“Right, since your school does have security cameras,” Morgana said.

“There is something that I’d like to know, if you don’t mind scouting out the school tomorrow,” she said. When her partner asked, she explained the idea she had in mind. Morgana had some tweaks to make, but said tweaks did make things more fun.

She paid for the printed card with an automated register, careful with how she handled the card. After all, the police had her fingerprints on record. She slipped it into a baggie while holding only the edges, then headed for Leblanc. There, she put on the medical gloves to do the rest of the work.

She made herself a quick meal, made sure Morgana was fine with her kibble and water, then discussed the calling card’s message with Morgana. She could test how it would look with the drawing app and her saved design. Once they had the message decided on and finished dinner, Chou brought out the sticker printer. It could print out the message one letter at a time, with random fonts, colors, and backgrounds. Using the tweezers of her multitool, she placed the stickers one by one on the card. Morgana kept the phone active so she had the plan as a reference.

Once it was done, she slid it back into plastic baggie. “This should leave an impression,” she said, satisfied with the work.

“Right, it has class,” Morgana said. “Now how about our guests?”

“I have great info,” Chou said, winking as she took her phone back. “Remember how I passed that pop quiz and got the rest of class as free time? I looked up the members of the school sports teams in that time. Kamoshida’s abusing the volleyball team and broke the track team. Now I have all of their names.”

“Awesome,” she said, coming around to peek. “So you can invite them all and if some turn it down, it’s no big deal.”

“If they all accept, it could be crazy,” she said, opening up the Metaverse app. “But the coach would deserve it. Let’s see how this works.”

The guest tutorial gave written instructions instead of insisting on going straight to the Metaverse for a mission.

Inviting Guest Party Members

Teams of Persona users are often recommended for difficult quests in realms like the Metaverse. In the case that only temporary members are allowed, the guests should have their Personas awakened before being invited. There are a variety of means to doing so. Playing the Persona Game while awake is one option; causing a person’s Shadow Self to calm down so the person can accept them is another. Personas can also be awoken through dreams if a wild card Persona user can send the dreamworld invitations.

Persona Game: Two participants are required at minimum for this method; one participant may already an awakened Persona, but at least one must not. Four to six participants is optimal. In an open space, the participants should gather in a circle at least three paces apart. If there is someone with an awakened Persona, have them start. A calling chant is required (samples: “Persona, Persona, come here’ or ‘Persona, show myself through yourself’). Speak it, then walk towards the next participant and tap their shoulder. The chant will be passed from participant to participant until the circle is completed.

If successful, the participants will see a form before them that only they can see; that is their Persona. The next time the participants sleep, they will be contacted in their dreams by a spirit who will offer to awaken their Persona if the participant accepts it as a representation of their self. The Persona will become active when they are needed.

Many rumors exist about the Persona Game, but this is the key information.

Accepting a Shadow: This method is dangerous to those involved and will only work if one is willing to accept both the good and bad of themselves. The following instructions are based upon the Metaverse, but the method can be done with other accessible realms. Currently, the app will need a confirmation to avoid any mistakes.

A Shadow Self can be located as the owner of a Palace or within Mementos. To turn this Shadow Self into a Persona, the person that the Shadow Self belongs to must be brought before the Shadow. A Shadow Self is the unconscious self afflicted by distortion or an internal conflict. The conflict or distortion should be resolved by the person in question, although others may assist. Otherwise, the Shadow Self will go berserk and become aggressive.

To awaken a Persona by confronting a Shadow Self within a Palace, invite the guest to their own Palace. To awaken a Persona by confronting a Shadow Self within Mementos, accept a request to dispatch the Shadow then invite the guest while the request is active to let the two selves meet.

Dream Invitation: The Metaverse app can be used to invite people to play the Persona Game within the Metaverse. This method has the advantage of calling a more powerful Persona than other methods would awaken. However, the Persona user awakened in this manner cannot use their Persona consciously unless they accept themselves similar to confronting a Shadow Self. They can be invited as a guest by the person who invited them whenever the host likes.

Use the dream awakening invitation form to specify who you wish to invite; a message for the invitation can be recorded. The guest will be given instructions on performing the Persona Game within their dreams. The host will play with them if only one is invited; the host will supervise if more than one guest is invited to awaken Personas. A person’s dreaming self should be more open to accepting themself, but the host should beware of a conflict that turns a half-awakened Persona into a Shadow Self.

Once a dream awakening is complete, the person will be available as a guest to invite on explorations of the Metaverse. A partner can be invited to a dream awakening to help supervise. The guests will only remember the events in the Metaverse as lucid dreams; they will not be able to recognize those who invited them unless given the host’s name.

_Please ignore any apparent time paradoxes in dealing with invited guests and the Metaverse in general; both guests and targets will not have time to process what occurred to them until they have time to sleep. Trying to figure out when things occur will only cause a headache; paying attention to a paradox may draw in things from the unknown. Take things in stride for best results._

_Also, even the Metaverse method of awakening a Persona requires the unseen blessing of certain beings. Such requests are normally open to whoever is paying attention. However, should the host bear a symbol of one who can awaken Personas, that being will be aware of the call and have priority in giving such blessings._

Chou could have scrolled through the instructions quicker, but she wanted to be sure that Morgana could read along. “What’s with this last section being different?” she wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, but it makes sense to me,” Morgana said.

She nodded. “So I can invite all these people, we just shouldn’t think too hard about things.”

“In this case, that’s probably best. But since you have so many people to fight Kamoshida with, I’d like to come into this dream to help out if something comes up.”

“I wouldn’t do this without you,” she said, putting Morgana in as her partner. Then she started putting in the guests to send them invitations: Ann, every member of the volleyball team, and every member of the former track team.

She recorded the message with her invitation to fight Kamoshida, then activated the invitation quests.

* * *

“Ann Takameki…”

“Huh?” It felt like a fog was clearing up, leaving her in an unfamiliar darkened street. Clouds filled the sky, reflecting the streetlights around her. Outside the circle of light she was in, there was a stranger in black clothes, a white mask, and red gloves. She was dreaming, that felt certain.

When they spoke, it was hard to tell who they might be. “Suguru Kamoshida has sinned greatly, harming you and many others. I aim to punish him and make him confess to his crimes. Would you like to take revenge on him?”

“Revenge on Kamoshida?” It was a shocking idea. One she really wanted, yes, but one she couldn’t admit to.

“His punishment will take place in his dreams, turning them to nightmares,” the strange person said. “He will not be able to remember who takes part, but he will remember the pain. Will you give him the suffering that he has given you?”

“Right, he should suffer,” she said, thinking of Shiho and Yuuki. Even Ryuji suffered because of the coach. If she could give Kamoshida all the suffering he had given, it felt worthwhile.

“Then it is time to awaken your Persona and see who you could be; complete the ritual.”

She wasn’t sure what ritual they meant, but when she met with Shiho and a few other girls, Ann found that she knew what to do.

Who she could be… was a fiery dancer who was confidant in her beauty, taking advantage of men instead of them taking advantage of her.

* * *

The idea of fighting Kamoshida was intimidating; just being in the same room with him felt that way some days. But he should be stopped. Shiho knew that. She’d just hoped that someone else would stop him. But now she had a chance to do so, in his dreams to make him confess to his sins. Could she really do this?

To her surprise, something sparked inside her. It was a desire to stop accepting his threats and stand up for herself. He was the one who kept telling her that she was only good at volleyball; she needed to stop listening to him. What would happen when she trusted herself?

She might be dead. It was something she felt was true. But, she was alive. She should choose to live. She should not let him go unpunished. Maybe the spark came from the strange person who invited her, the one with the red gloves.

Who she could be… was a strong woman who was fleet on her feet, one who was skilled enough to surpass even the swiftest of men.

* * *

He wanted to fight back. Yeah, Ryuji couldn’t deny that he wanted nothing more than to see Kamoshida cut down to size, groveling for the forgiveness that he’d never get. But there was also a paralyzing fear in him: he’d gotten a leg broken last time he’d fought back, along with the loathing of the rest of the team. What would happen if he tried again? Nobody liked a complainer, but everyone would complain about an oddball. Everyone grumbled about his current behavior and appearance because he stood out.

But forget that fear! This was a chance to fight against Kamoshida in his dreams and have that rotten coach know about it? To make him confess to his sins… this was a chance that he’d never get again. He could imagine his former teammates finally cracking too. Ryuji saw the frustration and anger finally directed to the proper target while they played that weird persona game.

Who he could be… was a bold pirate who took his circumstances and made himself far more than others expected of him.

* * *

He was dreaming of a street he’d never seen. It didn’t seem like Tokyo, Yuuki thought. Although, he hadn’t seen all of Tokyo even though he’d lived in the city his whole life. There was something quieter to this place, like it rarely had the hectic mass of activity Tokyo bustled with every day. Why was he here?

Before long, he found that he wasn’t alone. An odd man was there, flickering in and out of existence; it was hard to tell if he was a butterfly or a man. That had puzzled Yuuki the previous morning, but it seemed perfectly normal here. “You were lent my protection for one night,” the butterfly man said. “But I’ll watch over you for a while longer. It’s for the best, I feel.”

“Oh, thank you,” Yuuki said. Things had been confusing lately; he couldn’t even remember a whole day, during which he apparently tried to commit suicide. Despite that confusion, there was something reassuring to this person, one that calmed him even when awake. From that calm, he’d told the doctor about the last thing he could clearly remember: Shiho running out when Yuuki had Kamoshida distracted and then getting thrown into the wall again. He’d even been able to tell a police officer about it later on, after he’d been promised it’d be anonymous.

“I am going to be busy tonight,” his protector said. “You’ve been invited to a game along with others. Don’t worry. This game will allow you to force Suguru Kamoshida to realize the graveness of his sins so that he confesses to them himself. It’s your choice whether to participate or not. But if you play the game tonight, you will be granted your own power. Such power will be most useful within this dream world, but it should give you courage in the real world too.”

His own power, one that would help give him courage. He knew how to endure things. Yuuki had endured a lot of crap in his life, everything from his classmates continually bullying him to his family constantly comparing him negatively towards his brother and cousins, and of course the hell Kamoshida put him through. Courage was something to admire but keep away from; standing up for himself or others only got him beaten down more. While Yuuki had often wondered why he was the punching bag for everyone else, he’d learned a long time ago to just endure it. That seemed to be the only acceptable choice in the eyes of others.

But if he had his own power, he wouldn’t have to accept being life’s punching bag.

As he was thinking of how great that could be, another strange figure approached him on the dark street. There was something about them… this person with red gloves was definitely human while the butterfly man might not be entirely human. They made the actual offer of giving Kamoshida all the suffering that he had inflicted upon others. What if it went wrong, though? He’d apparently committed suicide only to not remember a thing about it. He couldn’t be sure of what he might do in the future now.

“Yuuki Mishima,” the person said again, sympathy and concern in their voice. “I’m not going to force you to do this if you’re afraid, or if you don’t want to for other reasons. But I believe it will help you, at least awakening your Persona.”

“That’s what the butterfly said,” Yuuki said, making him wonder something. “Hey, did you send the butterfly to watch over me?”

They nodded. “Yes, I thought it might help.”

“It did, he was very kind,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Joker,” they replied.

“Ah… why are you helping me? I appreciate it, but you seem like you’re someone powerful. That butterfly too; why would you two help someone like me?”

“Because you don’t deserve to suffer like you have been,” they said without hesitation. It was strange; not many people treated him like this. “You deserve to have control over your own life, to be able to pursue what you want. Society is distorted, making those who don’t fit in suffer needlessly. To correct that, I’m going to take down those like Kamoshida. Do you want to help me?”

He wasn’t the only one who suffered. Yuuki had never been in a position like this before. “No one’s really helped me,” he said, although that bitterness wanted to break out into a righteous fury to stop suffering for anyone, not just himself.

“That’s no excuse to stay silent,” Joker said. “Our society encourages people to ignore the problems of others; it’s none of your business, everyone would say. But that complacency allows suffering to grow. It takes courage to be the one who calls out someone like Kamoshida, but that courage is something that will make him stop destroying the lives of others. I am someone who won’t ignore others in trouble. What about you?”

“You’ve got a point,” he said. “All right; I don’t know how much I can help, but I want to be someone like you.”

“Don’t worry, every little bit helps,” they said, smiling in a way that seemed like they would defy anyone. “Then come awaken your Persona and see who you can be.”

Who he could be… was a strange creature of many eyes, one who watched over all to call out the things that sinners tried to hide.

* * *

4/20

In the morning, Chou felt cheerful. All those she had invited agreed to help fight Kamoshida. They weren’t quite ready to start, since Morgana needed to search the school again and Chou needed to copy the calling card so it did not get missed. As normal, they went to school and treated it like a regular day. But Chou could see a difference already. The students she’d invited were talking seriously to each other. They tried to keep it quiet, but they were anticipating something.

After classes ended, Morgana wasn’t in the courtyard. But Ryuji was, so she offered to go on a run with him. He was enthusiastic again, just as cheerful as she was. “Hey, I wanted to thank you for helping out.”

“Helping out how?” Chou asked. Did he recognize her? Her guests weren’t supposed to.

“With Ann and Shiho, I mean,” he said, pausing in their warm-up stretches. “I’ve been worried about them lately, since they haven’t seemed like themselves. While I wanted to help, I wasn’t sure how.” He shrugged. “Is it a girl thing? Because they seemed more normal today during lunch.”

“Well it’s sort of like that, something another girl would understand more,” Chou said. “But I’m sure your support helps too. Having a guy be respectful and friendly is reassuring when you’ve got another who keeps sexually harassing you.”

“I’d rather sock the guy who’s harassing them,” Ryuji said. Although he was angry, he let go of it after a moment. “But I got you. I suppose it’s up to me to prove that not all guys are bad.”

“That’s a lot to fall on one guy’s shoulders,” Chou said. “But you can do it.”

“Heh, I won’t let you girls down,” he said with a smile. “All right, I’ll show you a good route around the neighborhood today. It’s about a mile, should be good for a newbie. Pace yourself for this; it’s no sprint.”

While she followed his advice, it was still tiring to run a full mile. Ryuji had some trouble too. Before they got back to school, he stumbled and cursed under his breath. “You okay?” Chou asked, stopping by him.

“Ye-yeah, sorry,” he said, steadying himself on a signpost. “My leg got broken a while ago and it’s still kinda weak. I thought I’d be good for a mile, though. Just give me a minute; I’ll try to finish up this route at least.”

They had to go slower to make it back to school. Ryuji offered to take her to a good cheap place to eat, so they went to the gym to change back into their uniforms. On her way back to the courtyard, she found Morgana. “Hey, how’d your scouting go?”

“Ah, there you are,” she said, jogging over. “It took a while, but I found it! We should be able to make this work.”

“Great. Well come on, I’m going to get something to eat in Shibuya with Ryuji.” She couched down to offer her bag.

“I hope it’s something I can share,” she said before hopping in.

As she got back up, Chou heard someone approach her from behind. “Oh, you’re still here?”

It was Shiho; Chou turned around and nodded. “Yeah, I went on a run with Ryuji. Did you get out of practice?”

“Yeah,” Shiho said, smiling a little. “Actually, it was pretty interesting. I was going to meet up with Ann to tell her. Um, you want to join us? It won’t mean as much to you, but you might find it interesting.”

“Sure, but I was going to eat somewhere with Ryuji,” she said. “We could go with the four of us; he had somewhere in mind, though.”

“We hadn’t decided where,” she said, taking out her phone. “Hang on, I’ll ask Ann what she thinks. Let’s go see where he has in mind.”

As it turned out, Ryuji wanted to go to a beef bowl shop. Shiho was glad with the suggestion and Ann agreed even though Shiho said it wasn’t where they usually went. The restaurant didn’t have a lot of customers; Ryuji said it was early for the usual crowd here. As he said, the food was pretty good there, with plenty of extra seasonings around like ginger and a pepper blend. And the fewer customers made it easier to chat.

“Shiho, what’s the news you had?” Ann asked once they had their food.

Brightening, Shiho said, “Oh, it’s something amazing. Practice was actually fun today.”

“Really?” Ann asked, honestly surprised. Even Ryuji raised an eyebrow at that.

“Those of us on the team always feel like we have to focus on our own performance, make sure we don’t mess up,” Shiho said. “I don’t know what’s changed, but today, it actually felt like team practice rather than individual. Coach Kamoshida has been in a bad mood lately, mostly due to headaches the past few days. But that means he’s not yelling as much as usual. And today, no one was taking his attitude. Everyone used to flinch when he started yelling. Today, one of the boys argued over some of his critiques and dared him to show the proper form for serving. Usually he just tells us to do it and points out every bad part we do.”

“Oh man, I bet he was pissed to have someone talk back,” Ryuji said. “How was it?”

“Well he was pissed, you could see that,” Shiho said, smiling again. “And he refused to demonstrate again, blaming his headache. But he gave in and didn’t blow his top as normal. He just had us split up to serving drills instead. By the end of practice, he was exhausted and told us to head home. So it was a decent practice for once.”

“That’s pretty pitiful for being decent,” Chou said bluntly. It might surprise them, but it should make them feel better about choosing to fight.

“But it’s really good compared to how Kamoshida normally handles practice,” Ann said. “He usually keeps other students out, but I’ve seen a few sessions. That’s great, Shiho! If only he would keep this up.”

“We can hope,” Shiho said.

“But is he gonna keep that up?” Ryuji said, a little of his smoldering anger showing through. “Even if he does, it doesn’t make up for what he’s done.”

“That’s true, but I’d rather enjoy the reprieve,” Shiho said, for a moment seeming tired of the struggle.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Ann said, though she looked at Shiho with concern. “Although really, he deserves to be called out for all he’s done. We shouldn’t let him keep going.”

Shiho nodded. “Well if this feeling of being a real team keeps up, we might be able to stand up for ourselves. Though it all depends on if these headaches of his keep up. He might get violent if he feels better.”

“Is he a really violent person?” Chou asked.

“Yeah, he’s the reason I got a broken leg,” Ryuji said, angry again. And again, he let it go; he might remember enough of the dream to know that Kamoshida was getting his comeuppance soon.

“Did he really break it?” Ann asked. “I heard it was an accident after he defended himself from you punching him.”

“That was no ‘case of self-defense’ as he claimed,” Ryuji said. “Sure, I punched him because I lost my temper, but he’d intentionally provoked me by talking shit about me being like my father over several days. And when I punched him, he knocked me to the ground and smashed my leg with his foot. He got away from that fight with a small bruise and the principal praised him for his restraint while disbanding the whole track team. Restraint, hah! It’s ridiculous.”

“That’s horrible,” Chou said. “Sounds like he should’ve been fired instead.”

“He should have been fired for a lot of things,” Ann said, also angry. “But the principal loves him and lets him get away with anything and everything. Last year, he put dozens of kids in detention just for complaining about Kamoshida. Nearly expelled one too, and Ryuji for that matter.”

“If anybody would’ve believed us girls about how he treats us, he would’ve been fired last year,” Shiho said. “But one of the seniors last year got in trouble for trying to report him. If we all complained about him, though, maybe they’d have to look into it? The school is really counting on us to win Nationals again.”

“I’d think they’d have to take it seriously if everyone on the team complained,” Chou said. “But I know that situation where adults will trust other adults over teenagers. It sucks.”

“Hey, is that what happened to you?” Ann asked. “The rumors around school are far too crazy to actually be true.”

“Well it is true that I’m on probation for assault,” Chou admitted. “But just that, and it’s a false charge too.”

“What got you falsely accused of assault?” Ryuji asked. The other girls were interested too, of course.

Feeling sure that they’d believe her, she decided to tell them. “Well I came across a drunken man trying to force a woman into his car. She was afraid and kept asking to be let go. So I went over and distracted the guy to give her a chance to get away. All I did was grab his shoulder, but he was so drunk that he tripped over himself and knocked his forehead into a road barrier. Then the police showed up and the guy threatened to fire the woman and ruin her career unless she said that I attacked him. I ended up arrested and within a couple of days, the guy and the police had sealed my fate without giving me any chance to defend myself.”

“Oh my god, really?” Shiho asked, her eyes wide in shock. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, who the hell does that guy think he is?” Ryuji asked, fuming. “I’d like to smack him in the face for your sake.”

“You shouldn’t given what he did to me,” Chou said. “But thanks for the thought. I just really have to be better about it than any of them expect of me.”

“That’s really unfair to you,” Ann said. “Especially with how the whole school thinks you’ve done much worse things now. I wish there was some way we could at least correct the rumors.”

“Maybe some counter rumors?” Chou asked. “I dunno; I’m ignoring them as best I can because I know the truth.”

“Counter rumors might work, or might muddle things up more,” Ann said.

Even though she said they were just something to ignore, her friends still spent time discussing with her how they might fix the terrible rumors going on about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Personas, I might not name all that will end up appearing. But here's a couple of them.
> 
> Shiho- Atalanta. A virgin priestess of Artemis, Atalanta was renown as an athlete and a hunter. She refused to marry until a suitor defeated her in a footrace, ordering all losers to be killed. The winner had to resort to tricking her with golden apples.
> 
> Yuuki- Beholder. A creature of many eyes or a being that is a single winged eye; both are known as Beholder. Catching its gaze is said to turn one to madness.


	12. Theft of the Crown

4/21

With the excuse to Sojiro that she was heading out for an early morning study session, Chou caught the earliest trains she could get to Shujin. They were less crowded, giving her some time to finish off the Jungian psychology book. No other students were on the early train, just quiet adults who were off to early jobs. It was a moment’s rest before what would be a very busy day.

Chou had noted the other end of the alley leading to Shujin’s entrance during her run with Ryuji yesterday. That let her approach the school unseen. Before leaving the alley, she let Morgana out of her bag. “All right, so describe the janitor’s closet for me again.”

Morgana sat down. “The cart with the supplies takes up a lot of space, along with various mops and containers. The two side walls are full of shelves and a clothing rack, while the back wall has a fusebox. Because of those fuses, they must keep a path clear through the closet. The door’s locked, but the lock’s easy to pick.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” she said, taking out her phone. “Ready for the first part of today’s mission?”

“Ready and able, Joker!” Morgana said.

“Then let’s get going, Ace,” Chou said with a smile. She activated the Metaverse app, set to navigate Self.

When they got into the school, Arsene appeared in the entrance hall. “I’m going to help you cheat again soon,” he said. “Not today, but you’ll need to be paying attention to the news on TV for it to work.”

“What’s watching the news going to get me?” Chou asked.

“Information that someone’s trying to keep from you,” Arsene said. “Your apathy seems to have had some authentic knowledge that’s beyond what we could have learned normally. If you learn something that’s being hidden from you early, we may be able to change the course laid out for us. I don’t know what such knowledge will lead us to, but I have a hunch it’ll be good.”

“If it’s just paying attention to the news for the rest of this week, that shouldn’t be hard,” Morgana said. “I’ll help, though I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“We won’t know unless she sees it,” Arsene said, pointing to Chou.

“All right, I’ll keep alert to that,” Chou said. “But who are you, really? Arsene or someone else?”

He chuckled at that and tipped his hat. “You might say I am a Persona, of Arsene. But does that mean I am not Arsene? That’s something you should judge for yourself.”

“Whoever you are, you’re a troll,” Chou said, although so far he was being an amusing troll that was interested in helping her. Arsene proved it by chuckling as he gave a bow; he then vanished.

By traveling through her layer of the Metaverse, they got to the janitor’s closet. Chou picked the lock open, then opened the door. The closet looked different from other areas of the school; the things shifted what they were and looked blurry. While it was an unknown as a place that she’d never seen for herself, she knew about it from Morgana’s description.

“The path to the fusebox is on this side,” Morgana said, pointing to the left side of the room. That led it to clearing out. “And now we need to hope that the app won’t let you transfer into something.”

“Right,” Chou agreed, stepping into the cleared path. Once Morgana was in with her, she took them out of the Metaverse.

The blurriness of the room cleared up into a darkness. She was prepared with a flashlight to give them some light. As Morgana said, they were standing in a cleared path beside the janitorial supply cart, and the fusebox was on the back wall. Placing the flashlight on a shelf, she put on medical gloves and used her pocketknife to open up the fusebox. Inside, there was a handy guide to what all the switches did. That let her shut off power to the whole school.

As a safety measure, the janitor’s closet had a latch on the inside so that anyone who got trapped inside could unlock it themselves. Chou put away her pocketknife and flashlight, then headed out. The original calling card got taped onto the door of Kamoshida’s office. Once that was up, she took the copies and pinned one to every bulletin board she could find. Morgana kept watch over the front entrance, ready to warn her if anybody came in. Even with that, it was a risky play. There were other entrances and they had to leave the front entrance unwatched while they moved between floors and the practice building. But putting a card on every bulletin board would make sure everyone had a chance to see them. The bold colors should get attention too.

Morgana finally came to her on the third floor of the practice building. “Somebody’s come in an entrance to this building. Got all of them?”

“Yup, and the power’s still off,” Chou said, taking out her phone to send them back to the Metaverse. That let them leave the school without leaving a trace behind. She went to a nearby diner to get some breakfast, sharing some eggs and milk with Morgana.

She went back to school at the time when her normal morning train would have arrived, blending in with the other students. A crowd was gathered around the bulletin board. “Is this for real?”

“Did the coach really do that?”

“But who put this up?”

One of the girls coming in with her hurried ahead and tried to get into the crowd. “What’s going on?” Chou paused along with the others, acting curious.

“Oh hey, you’ve got to hear this,” one of the boys by the board said. “See this? Listen. ‘Suguru Kamoshida, a vain sinner of lust, has destroyed the happiness and safety of this school. He ruined the track team through treachery, beats the volleyball team, trains them cruelly, harasses them all, and has raped many girls. Kamoshida, we shall steal your distorted heart and make you confess your sins. From the phantom thieves of dreams’.”

“Is that true about him?”

“I’m not sure, but I’d believe it.”

Since she’d heard someone read the card, Chou moved on to homeroom. People were talking about the calling card everywhere; nothing else seemed to be of interest. She even saw some people ask one of the volleyball players if the card was true. In her classroom, further gossip told that Kamoshida had seen the cards already. He’d lost his temper and demanded to know who had posted the cards. Apparently the cards in the practice building were mostly taken down but those in the main building were still around. This was the reaction they’d been hoping for; Morgana agreed that the Treasure had to be materialized now.

She got through the day without seeing Kamoshida, although it seemed he’d had a tense conversation with the principal about the cards. Once school got out, she left as though trying to catch the soonest train. That was just a cover to get to the alleyway and into the Metaverse. Outside the castle, the lighting and clouds had taken on a red hue. Even the air itself felt tense.

“Security is at its max now because of the calling card,” Ace explained. “The Shadows are going to be alert to anything out of place. We’re going to have to be careful even though we can head straight up to the throne room.”

“Roger that,” Joker said.

They headed up to the safe room at the top of the tower. Despite the high security, there still wasn’t a guard in the hallway. The doors to the throne room were wide open, although the windows were now barred. Kamoshida’s Shadow didn’t seem to be in the throne room. Instead, there was a cognition of the principal dancing around the throne to an audience of no one. He was dressed like a jester, with bells on his hat jangling and a tambourine in his hand jingling.

Despite the bars, Joker still hopped up to the left window to see what could be done. A close examination showed a panel she could unscrew to drop the bars there. They snuck back to the treasure room, keeping an eye on the principal. Expecting guards and traps, they paused outside the doors to try sensing what was past. But it seemed empty and quiet. After a bit, Ace nodded and opened the doors.

No guards were there; no traps got set off. But in the Treasure room, they found that the Treasure had taken the form of a giant ornate crown. “How’re we going to get out with that?” Joker asked. “It’s bigger than me.”

“Wooow, so that’s a materialized Treasure,” Ace said, staring at the crown with her tail twitching eagerly. “It’s so shiny, just breath-taking.”

Crouching down, Joker nudged Ace. “It’s also a lust so powerful it rationalizes rape. That’s ugly.”

“Huh?” She shook herself. “Oh yeah, sorry. I’m not sure what just came over me… it was one of the few things I remembered, that finding and stealing Treasures was important. Now we’ve got the Treasure to steal, and a way to distract the Palace owner…”

“But this thing is going to be too heavy for just us to move,” Joker pointed out.

Ace put a paw to her chin. “Right… hmm, I wonder if it’s connected to the owner’s ego? He still thinks he’s hot stuff. So battling him may be key to making the Treasure reasonable to steal.”

“Then let’s get into place and see about luring him here.”

Fortunately, they heard Kamoshida bellowing as they were hiding behind one of the enormous planters. “What’s going on here? Someone was in the treasure room!”

The principal clapped the tambourine before bowing. “I haven’t seen anyone! The door hasn’t moved!”

“You fool, I was alerted that someone was walking around in there,” Kamoshida said, looking around the throne room before heading into the treasure room. Although the crown was enormous, he came out with it in hand. “I am the king… I won’t let anyone steal that from me.”

“Of course not, you’re our star and glory!” the principal said, back to dancing around.

With Kamoshida taking up position at the throne, Joker and Ace headed out to the outer hall. She brought out her phone and activated the guest invitation. Only ten guests could be invited at a time; she started out with her friends, then made sure to invite Yuuki and the girl who’d made the request she’d accepted. Then the others who made similar requests… Ryuji and Ann appeared, opening up two slots so she could invite more than ten. Both of them seemed asleep while standing there, so she saw who of the first ten came in.

All ten did; she kept calling people in until she had a force of two dozen. That seemed good. Ace checked around the sleeping guests, then came over as they were waiting on the last ones. “I have a hunch they’ll become alert here once you speak to them,” she said. “They’re armed and their Personas are awake to protect them.”

She nodded. Once the two dozen were there, she said, “I hope they know their powers and abilities like a dream.”

As Ace guessed, the guests stirred once she spoke. They seemed puzzled and hazy still. Trying not to think on it too much and invite problems related to paradoxes, Joker got onto her feet and walked closer to the door. Some of them started to ask what was going on.

“Hush, and be alert,” Joker ordered, getting an immediate response from them all in following her orders. “You are in Kamoshida’s dreams, where he believes himself to be the king of the school. But we’re here to punish him for his sins. I am Joker; that over there is Ace. We’ll be leading you in this battle. Do what you wish to him, except for killing him. If he dies today, then he will never confess to his crimes. But give him your suffering until he is overcome with humiliation.”

“All right, leave it to us,” Ryuji said, quickly getting agreement from the rest. In this dreaming state, their anger did not find resistance to being unleashed. Ryuji had a spiked bat in hand, one of the more dangerous weapons among the group.

“Good,” she said, smirking. This was going to be great. “I will be watching over you. If you become badly injured or worn out, I will send you back to your own dreams to recover. I may also send you away to give other victims a chance to lash out at him before he is broken. Also, you guys here watch over the girls and be ready to protect them. Kamoshida’s cardinal sin is lust, so he will focus his desires on them.”

“We got it, we’ll keep them safe,” another boy said. His Persona seemed defensive and he was carrying a large shield, so he had been a good call to bring in early.

“That’s disgusting, but another reason to make him suffer,” Ann said, ready to use a whip that was in her hand.

Joker nodded. “Certainly. Now, head on in.”

Ryuji and the boy with the shield charged right in. “Give it up Kamoshida, you’re no king!” Ryuji yelled.

Meanwhile, Joker and Ace got back up to the balcony, then from there to one of the back chandeliers to have a good view over the room. The other students went right in the doors to the throne room. “Right, you’re nothing but a washed-up thug,” Shiho called. She had a volleyball with her instead of a normal weapon, but she was handling it like a weapon. “A fallen star that burns up everyone else trying to shine again.”

“I am not washed-up!” Kamoshida yelled defensively. “How did you get here past my castle full of traps and loyal guards?”

“We came here because of justice,” Yuuki said. As he took up position by one of the torso pillars, Joker noted that he had a laptop in his hands. What was he going to do with just a laptop?

On the stairs up to the treasure room, the ghostly form of Asmodeus appeared. He looked like the young Kamoshida again. And when the false king spoke, so did the demon. “Nonsense! You’re all peasants, each and every one of you! You have no star power; you only have worth as my slaves.”

“We refuse to be slaves!” Ann shouted, quickly getting echoed by the other students.

“You are peasants,” the principal said in a sing-song voice, tapping his tambourine and making many flourishes despite his girth. “You ought to stick to your duties and follow the king’s orders.”

“No!”

With a scream, Kamoshida grabbed the arm of the throne and threw it aside. His skin was turning a lurid pink. Asmodeus approached him and faded into his body. “Don’t you dare defy me! I am the king!” With sickening spasms, Kamoshida and Asmodeus fused together and grew into a grotesque lanky demon. His tongue grew slick and shiny, so long that it could no longer fit in his mouth. Instead, it flicked against the floor and chandeliers. He had to sit down to stay in the room, but now the enormous crown fit his misshapen head perfectly.

The principal danced away to the side, throwing away his tambourine and calling out several wine bottles to juggle. “Who’s the fool now? Who’s the fool now? Now you all must face the wrath of the King, the great Kamoshida!”

Kamoshida himself was now armed with a giant glass half-filled with wine and an equally giant fork with tines that shimmered with sharpness. “That’s right, I am the one and only, the great King Kamoshida! Bow down and obey!” He swung the fork down to attack Ryuji. Thankfully, he jumped aside and struck back with his spiked bat.

Below, several students got the idea to run to the other sides of the pillars to surround Kamoshida and the principal. Third Eye showed that while their attacks weren’t doing much damage at a time, the sheer number of assailants should whittle Kamoshida down. On the other hand, the cognition of the principal was taking heavy damage when he got hit. But he kept laughing and dancing around, avoiding the students attacking him frequently. He didn’t even drop his wine bottles, instead throwing one over to fill up Kamoshida’s glass before the king took a heavy drink. With the glass mostly empty, he then swung it down and captured Ann within.

“I got it,” Ace said, bringing out her slingshot to try breaking the wineglass. It caused a crack, but to little help to Ann. When the principal refilled the drink, not a drop spilled out.

Then Joker’s phone beeped. How? Only the Metaverse app worked in the Metaverse. Then she felt a nudge from Arsene. This was important. She got her phone out to see.

It was from Yuuki as he worked at his laptop out of the main conflict. ‘Those wines the principal has are empowering Kamoshida, and Ann stuck in there. He’s going to hit everyone harder now. So will she once we can get her out. Either break the glass, break the bottles the principal has, or stop the principal from refilling the glass.’

“Yuuki’s being real handy,” Joker said quietly, then looked over the students. “Break the glass and bottles!”

Although she shouted that and was ready to flee from her perch, neither Kamoshida nor the principal looked up at where she and Ace were. But the students certainly heard her. Ann kicked at the wineglass from inside; that didn’t break it, but a followup volleyball spike from Shiho did. Raging like a spoiled child, Kamoshida hurled the broken glass at other students near him. The app indicated that they’d taken heavy damage from it, so Joker started sending those students away. She called more in, careful to make sure she didn’t bring in enough girls to make them the more numerous group.

The new arrivals awoke quickly; they saw what was going on and were quick to join in despite not being briefed. By the time she had two dozen students involved again, Kamoshida had whipped out a new wineglass and captured Shiho in it. He didn’t get much of a chance to drink out of it as everyone was focused on getting his captive freed. Joker had to keep sending students away and calling in new ones with all the broken glass being flung around, although she tried to keep the empowered girls around and in good fighting shape.

There were four of the empowered girls by the time the students got the cognition of the principal defeated. He vanished with an eerie cackle, fitting well to his jester role in this Palace. With his help gone, Kamoshida screeched. “Stop this, you filthy peasants! Don’t defy your king! Slaves, bring my golden vessel!”

Although they hadn’t been there before, a group of the masked cognitions burst out of the treasure room with a large golden bowl full of human legs. They seemed to be women’s legs, at least if the high heels and stockings were any indication. Kamoshida snatched up the bowl, summoned another giant fork, then ate up a bunch of legs like they were noodles. All the while, he completely ignored the attacks coming from all around him.

She soon got a message from Yuuki. ‘Ugh, the ‘food’ in that bowl is healing him way more than we can damage him even with the girls doing more damage now. That needs to go too. Also, I feel like the crown is helping to defend him. I think Shiho was trying to knock it off, but he swatted her away with his tongue right as she did.’

Joker quickly replied with a text, ‘Thanks for the info.’ Then she called down, “Destroy that vessel now!”

“Noooooo, don’t you dare touch this with your filthy peasant hands!” Kamoshida squealed, slamming the vessel down to send tremors through all those on the ground. The chandeliers swung in response but seemed like they’d hold. Joker and Ace still leapt back to the balcony to be safe.

Joker nudged Ace once they had their footing. “Yuuki thinks that the crown is helping him too. But most of them can’t reach it.”

“Hmm, good eye on that kid,” Ace said, studying the crown herself. “His ego is affecting the Treasure, but the Treasure affects his ego too. Okay, leave it to me. I’ll sneak up and knock it right off his head.”

“I’m going to swap out the injured people for the last few on the list I have, so they all have a chance for revenge,” Joker said, already starting to do that.

Ace nodded. “In that case, let me know when you’ve got them swapped, then I’ll go get the crown.”

Before she was even finished, there was a tremendous crack as the vessel was broken. “Nooooo, that was my first Nationals trophy!” Kamoshida whined. “Fine then, guess I’ll have to show you what makes a true champion! Slaves, bring out my secret weapon! You all asked for it, so I’ll show you my incredible technique! Few people witness such perfection!”

Joker kept watch over the room; the students below all thought they were in a dream, but they reacted to his threat. Some hadn’t spent enough frustration and continued to attack Kamoshida. Others paused to see what was going to happen. After a bit, none of Kamoshida’s cognitions showed up. Yuuki sent her a message. ‘Uh, what’s happening?’

‘He can’t call his slaves because you’re all rebelling,’ she replied. Meanwhile, Ann got her whip wrapped around Kamoshida’s tongue. Seeing the chance, Shiho slammed her volleyball right into the coach’s face. He screamed and nearly fell back; the crown wobbled on his head. Ace was perched on one of the planters; she paused on seeing that happen.

“Goddammit, anyone, get my weapon!” Kamoshida screamed, getting balanced again and yanking his tongue out of the whip. Ann got unbalanced from that, but the guy with the large shield was still around. He went to support her and keep her from behind hit.

“We gotcha covered, coach!” Three of the male teachers appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a volleyball the size of a small car. They lobbed it over Kamoshida’s crown.

“Alright, here’s my killer technique!” Completely ignoring the ceiling (it was briefly gone, although the chandeliers still hung in place), Kamoshida leapt up onto his feet, punched the volleyball higher, then slammed it into the ground with an explosion worthy of an enormous bomb.

Joker could feel her heart pounding in that moment. She checked on the status of her guests. None had fainted, but many of them were close. “Heal up, anyone who can!” she shouted as she started dismissing some of the most heavily injured. There was no one new to call in, so she cast her own Media over all her allies before jumping down into the fray.

“Hah, scared you peasants off now?” Kamoshida taunted. With a snap of his fingers, the enormous volleyball was back in his hand. “You’re all hyenas, every single one of you. You’re just dying for a scrap of my glory. But I earned this! I get to choose my rewa…” and a chandelier suddenly swung around and smacked him in the face. “Aaaaarrrgh!”

From a chuckle in back, it seemed that was Yuuki’s doing. Joker fired at the coach’s knee, hoping that could bring him down again so Ace could steal the crown. But she missed and got him in the thigh instead. Ryuji was still in the fight and had better luck slamming his bat into the coach’s ankle. He nearly got stomped on for that, but dodged out of the way in time.

“Dammit, now you’re all going to die!” Kamoshida then readied his volleyball to spike bomb them again.

“Counter it!” Joker ordered on impulse. Would it work? She’d have to trust these players.

“Got it!” Shiho and the other two empowered volleyball girls rushed over into position.

“You can do this!” Ann called in support, presumably because she wasn’t a volleyball player herself.

Kamoshida then spiked the ball straight at the girls. Using the very moves that he had drilled into them, they combined their return volleys to counter his spike and send it straight at his crotch. Kamoshieda shrieked in agony as he crashed into the stairs. Strangely enough, his body and crown were shrinking. Ace acted quickly this time, ramming her whole body into the crown to send it and herself flying into the middle of the room. By the time she landed on her feet, the crown was small enough that she could grasp it with both paws.

A ghostly form then emerged from Kamoshida, taking on the demonic features of the giant Kamoshida. Asmodeus gave an unearthly scream and tried to snatch the crown away from Ace. An explosion of fire from Ann stopped the demon; it was followed up by a din of other spells that cracked the demon’s form. Swapping to Arsene, Joker snapped her fingers and finished Asmodeus off with Eiga. The oppressive feeling of lust started to dissipate from the room.

Back to a normal size and form, Kamoshida picked himself up off the stairs and ran right after Ace. “Give that back!” he called, in more of a whine than bellow. “I… I am the king!”

“The king of shit,” Ryuji said, sticking his leg out and tripping Kamoshida up.

They were quick to surround him; Ace kept out of the circle. “You don’t deserve this crown,” she said, holding it away from him.

“Le-leave me be,” Kamoshida whimpered. “I’ve worked hard all my life. I deserve good things.”

“You’re doing nothing good,” Ann said.

“No, I’m the reason this school is on the map,” Kamoshida said. “You’re all counting on me; without me, you’re nothing! I put so much effort into being a champion and all you do is beg for more out of me and criticize me with passive aggressiveness. I’m doing the best I can to help!”

“What about the harm you do?” Joker asked, feeling some power awaken within her. It was like casting magic; it wanted to be connected. “What about those you beat nearly to death? Or those you raped and tormented?”

“That is how you learn, how I learned,” he said.

“That is not teaching,” Joker said, activating the connection. “This is what your teaching does.”

Images flashed before her eyes: Kamoshida berating others to convince them that they were worthless, stealing their victories despite their hard work, beating them to work out his frustrations, destroying students that were the slightest threat, spreading lies and rumors to crush the reputations of others, doing as he wished to the girls because he saw them as rewards to his efforts. There were other things too: taking bribes when accepting a job he felt was beneath him, lying, bribing, and other abuses to lower the reputations of his teammates so he was the sole star, blackmailing many young women so he got sex with them. But while she saw the disgusting deeds, Kamoshida felt the pain, suffering, humiliation, and betrayal that his victims had suffered. He felt the punches he had given out; he felt the violations and sexual acts he’d forced on others. He felt the helplessness of having his reputation and life ruined with no way to speak up for himself.

And Kamoshida screamed in horror, grasping his ears and trying to block out what he was experiencing. “St-st-stop! I don’t want this again! Forgive me! Please, stop this!”

“You never listened when we asked you the same,” the boy with the shield said in disgust.

“You never stopped when we said no,” Shiho said. “We couldn’t do anything without accounting for what you would do.”

“Right, we don’t need your permission to live our lives,” Ann said. “Now you know how we feel and have no way to deny it.”

“But I’m doing the best I can, leave me alone!” Kamoshida said, hysterical now. “I became the champion! I became the king! I’m not washed-up and past my prime! Why am I still suffering?”

“You caused this suffering,” Joker said. “Now you have to live with it.”

Kamoshida shook, curling himself into a ball. “I didn’t ask for this! Please stop; I’ll do anything. Let me atone, or something, just stop!”

“These are your sins,” Joker said. “You will know all of them. Confess to them when you awaken; post them up where they can’t be easily taken down. Whatever you do, you will suffer for your sins for the rest of your life.”

“D-do I really deserve this?” Kamoshida asked, looking up at her. “Did I really do this?”

“Yes,” everyone but Ace and Joker said.

“This can’t be true, I…”

“Accept it!” Ryuji said, gripping his bat like he was ready to attack.

“It’ll take time for him to accept it,” Joker said to reassure the others as she sent them away. “We’ve done what we can.”

“Looks like he will suffer for the rest of his life,” Ann said as they started to vanish. “Good.”

“I am the one who matters,” Kamoshida muttered. “My perception makes the world; everyone else are just illusions. Right, that’s it…”

“That’s a fallacy,” Joker said. “You can’t hide from your sins anymore.”

“I was supposed to be the champion, always…” he muttered. “Am I supposed to return to my real self like this? N-no… my life will be ruined.”

“You ruined many lives,” Ace said, keeping out of reach with the crown. “Your distortions are affecting reality. So this is your just punishment. Go back to your real self unless you want another beat down without the protection of your desires.”

Kamoshida uncurled and stood up, his face still one of horror. “I thought I would never lose; I thought I could do anything because I deserved it. But, but this? This is what I hated adults for when I was young. Okay, I’ll go back. I’ll… I’ll take this knowledge, find some way to atone. It’s the only thing I can do.”

“Do that,” Joker said as Kamoshida faded away. The crown sparkled just the same, turning into a medal.

And the entire castle began to quake. “We need to scram, the Palace is coming apart!” Ace said, gripping the medal tight.

She nodded and ran for the safe room. Ace followed, stumbling into the safe room as she turned back into a normal cat; the medal was around her now. Kneeling down, Joker took the medal off her, then transported them to the entrance so they could leave. The castle was tumbling down in a massive crash as the app took them back to the normal world.

‘The Palace of Suguru Kamoshida has been destroyed,’ the app reported. ‘The destination has been deleted. The request has been completed. Good work.’

“All right, our mission was a success!” Morgana said excitedly. “That was amazing!”

“Yeah, it was,” Chou said with a smile. She glanced over the medal now that things were safe. There were rings, circles, and triangles printed on the medal, but it was in a meaningless pattern. “He was convinced that he would deserve what he wanted if he became champion; this is probably an Olympic medal. It doesn’t look real, though.”

“It won’t be,” Morgana said. “It’s his cognition of the medal. Makes sense for the Treasure that represents how his desires got so distorted. He’ll still have the real medal, but I bet he won’t be proud of it anymore.”

She nodded. “Think we could sell this? It is gold and I don’t think we want to hang onto it.”

“Probably. Hey, aren’t you excited? This is a great victory!”

Chou chuckled and opened up her bag to make sure it’d be comfortable for Morgana. “I am excited. I just don’t go crazy over stuff. Come on, let’s go to the beef bowl shop. I know I can sneak you stuff there.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The owner of Untouchable gave her a questioning look for wanting to sell a gold medal after all the jewels she’d sold the other day. Thankfully, he just shrugged and offered thirty thousand yen for it. With that on top of what she got from raiding the Palace before, Chou suddenly had more money than she’d ever had before. It was exciting, but she kept that excitement to herself. The important thing, as she reminded herself, was that Kamoshida’s sins were punished. Now to see how the change of heart would work.


	13. First Confession of Sin

4/21

After the crazy day, Chou just wanted to wind down during the evening. She decided to go over to the bathhouse to wash up there. Just the hot bath sounded nice, but a posted sign informed her that they had a medicinal bath on Mondays and Thursdays. That sounded even better. The shower room was communal, but thankfully she wasn’t the only one who was there for a good cleaning.

The other women in the bath were all elderly, chattering about things that wouldn’t apply to her for a long time. Chou leaned against the corner and just soaked in the water and the chatter. Since she was the youngest one there, she expected they’d just leave her alone. That was fine.

When she checked on her hands idly as she thought of leaving, the woman next to her suddenly said, “Oh dearie, did you tear that nail recently?”

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal,” Chou said. She didn’t recall when she’d torn it since it didn’t hurt. But she should trim her nails up.

“Your other nails are uneven,” the old woman said. Her silvered hair was an anarchy of loose curls too, something that made Chou curious. “Who taught you how to do your nails?”

“My mother did, though I don’t pay much attention to it,” she said. “Neither did she.”

“Hmm, would you like me to show you a better way to shape your nails?” she offered. “It’s a little thing, yes, but the little things build up to make good impressions.”

Her mother hadn’t talked at all about shaping nails, just using a pair of clippers and washing her hands well. And butterfly girl had mentioned that she should try to polish herself up a little more. “Sure, that sounds like a good thing to know.”

“Good, then let’s step out a moment and I’ll help you.”

Under the old woman’s instructions, she trimmed her nails, ran a file along the edges to make them even, and used a cuticle press to give a smoother shape. She even recommended a nail strengthener that was painted on like nail polish, to make sure her nails were less likely to tear and grow rough. It was just a small thing, but it felt like a good thing to know.

“Thanks, I really didn’t think about all this before,” Chou said to the woman.

“It’s no trouble, dearie,” she said, smiling warmly. “If you’re interested, I can teach you a few little things here and there if we meet up in here again.”

She nodded. This didn’t chime like a confidant, but Chou still felt like this was a good friendship to start. “Sounds great to me.”

* * *

‘There was some commotion at school about one of the coaches today. Led to less gossiping about me, I suppose. I did met a nice old lady at the bathhouse tonight. She gave me some good tips about nail care; it’s something I usually don’t think of, but she made good sense. Also found a good breakfast diner and got in studying, so a good day, I believe.’

* * *

4/22

The night before had been terrible. His headache worsened and Kamoshida could not stop feeling tense. In his mind, he was being hunted by the stranger with the red gloves; the stranger was accompanied by many other bandits. He never saw them in more than a glance, but he felt that they were just out of sight. He couldn’t focus on anything beyond those haunting images. Still, he somehow fell asleep in his armchair while the TV was running.

That was the night before. This morning… this morning he could barely think. His memories kept screaming in his head. At the same time, they weren’t his memories because they were things he’d done from the view of other people. Those memories were full of pain and humiliation, showing him just how horrible a person he was. He wanted to scream and deny it, but there was no denying this. He was making the world worse by doing what he wanted.

Then there was the matter of his dreams. He remembered the dreams of that night vividly. While he was on the lookout for the stranger with red gloves, the entire volleyball team turned on him. The former track team came after him too. And it was both teams pounding out their frustrations on him. He tried to fight back but they were relentless. Even when he begged, they forced him to feel the suffering they had gone through at his hands and words. He’d been justified in all his actions… or so he’d thought. Now he realized, he was a villain. He was exactly the kind of person he hated.

The stranger with red gloves did appear. He said that Kamoshida would live with his sins acknowledged, something he could no longer deny. He needed to confess his crimes, post them in a way that wouldn’t easily be denied. While he wouldn’t be forgiven, it was his responsibility to confess and atone. He had to make things right.

By the time he knew what to do, he was already late for work. Suguru called the principal to take a sick day, then grabbed a pencil and paper. He should list who he harmed, and how he harmed them.

He needed a lot more than one piece of paper to do that.

* * *

Kamoshida wasn’t at school; it must have been unexpected since gym class got canceled for the day. All the talk around school was still about the calling card and what Kamoshida had done. Of course, his absence added fuel to the gossip’s fire. People wondered if he’d been murdered or arrested. All the calling cards had been removed, although some students had taken them for themselves. Whenever they asked about the calling cards or the coach, the teachers would ask that they not make a big fuss about it.

Chou wasn’t making a fuss. She passed time in her classes doing homework and making doodles. At lunch, she met up with her friends in the courtyard. “You all seem to be in a good mood,” she said after a few minutes of jokes and laughter.

“I don’t know why, but yeah,” Shiho said with a smile. “I had a really good dream. Guess that makes everything seem better.”

“Dude, I had a great dream too,” Ryuji said. “It was a bit weird cause it was like a continuation from the night before, because of a strange guy wearing red gloves.”

“Red gloves?!” Ann asked in surprise. Shiho’s eyes went wide too.

“Yeah, that’s what I remember,” he said. “I guess he had black clothes, just those gloves stood out. You know, you can’t always think sensibly in dreams, even when you know you’re dreaming. If that makes sense.”

“That’s the definition of a lucid dream,” Chou said.

“Um, I had a great dream too, involving that stranger with red gloves,” Ann said. “And it was the second dream I had of that person.”

“It’s the same with me,” Shiho said. “He invited me to help him punish Kamoshida. I had to beat the coach in volleyball in a castle, or something like that, but I did beat him.”

“Whoa, that’s eerie,” Ryuji said, wide-eyed himself now. “Red glove guy made the same invitation to me, and I was a pirate fighting against Kamoshida as an evil king.”

“Same with me, though I thought I was in a castle bar?” Ann said. “This is so weird. What about you Chou?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t remember what I dreamed about last night. This sounds really interesting, and on a day when Kamoshida’s suddenly absent.”

“Hey, you’re right, he’s never gone absent before,” Ryuji said. “You think that maybe it was real and we somehow punished Kamoshida in his dreams?”

“That would be really nice if it was true,” Shiho said. “But it can’t be real, right?”

“Hey, how about we just enjoy a good day when Kamoshida is not around?” Ann said, taking a moment to stretch her arms and smile. “Although, it does make me wonder if there’s someone who might believe us in how terrible Kamoshida has been? Maybe not in school…”

“There might be some staff who’d believe you,” Chou said. “Ms. Kawakami does, at least. You could ask her if she’s convinced anyone else.”

“True,” Ann said.

“It could help with we band together,” Shiho said, punching one of her hands into the other. “You both, me, the volleyball team, and what about the track team? Because I heard him boasting about how he pushed the runners into impossible drills until they snapped.”

“They might agree, but not if I talk with them about it,” Ryuji said, worried.

“I think some of the volleyball guys know the track guys still,” Shiho said. “Although they seem to resent us because of Kamoshida favoring us.”

“I could talk to the track team members, maybe,” Ann said.

“I don’t think I could help,” Chou said. “But maybe if more than one person goes to talk with the track members about reporting Kamoshida’s abuses, they might cooperate.”

“Yeah, that would be worth a shot,” Ann said. They soon agreed to discuss this with others. “Although, I can’t believe we’re doing this. Speaking against him seemed unthinkable.”

“Right, but he’s done terrible things,” Shiho said. “I used to be afraid, but now I’m not. Maybe that was why we all had those dreams? So that we’re brave enough to do this.”

“I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I really can’t help,” Chou said. “Good luck, guys.”

Because of that appointment, she headed straight back to Yongen-Jaya to visit Dr. Takemi. The clinic was quiet like before. Takemi had her hold the crystal pendulum again, taking close notes on what it did and referencing other notes to figure out what the signs meant. Along with that, she made a more normal exam again and asked about her headaches.

“And is this cat your spirit guide?” Takemi asked, taking her in stride like everything else.

“Yes, this is Morgana,” Chou said.

“Hello, thanks for taking care of her,” Morgana said, waving her tail.

After looking at Morgana, she asked, “Can she read? It would help if we could communicate.”

“Yes, she can do that,” Chou said.

Takemi put her hand on her chin, then nodded and took some spare paper to make some notes. “All right, let’s start with some basic ‘yes no’ questions. Don’t worry, this still counts as patient confidentiality.” She put the paper on the floor where Morgana was sitting. “You said her mental defenses were compromised due to an attack on her mind in the Metaverse, correct?”

“Yup,” Morgana said, putting a paw on yes.

“Then has she recovered from that?” Takemi asked. Morgana patted ‘yes’ again. “Hmm, good. Are you knowledgeable about human health? No? Then you’re knowledgeable about what can happen in alternate realms?” On getting a yes, Takemi made more notes. “I see. That’s fine since that’s where I’m lacking. Then you seem to be fine now, Miss Amamiya. I’d recommend keeping with the multivitamins. Also, I have a favor to ask of you, if you’re interested. I can compensate you by offering you some of my medicines; they could help you in your adventures.”

“What do you have in mind?” Chou asked.

“My clinic is registered as internal medicine because I do research on new medications,” Takemi explained. “As you might imagine, it’s difficult for me to find human test subjects as an independent researcher. You are a healthy teenager, tall for a girl but relatively average overall. Your Metaverse experience is unusual, but I don’t think it would be detrimental to a clinical trial. Would you help me to test a medicine I have in development? It’s safe for human use at this stage and I will be monitoring your condition closely. What do you say?”

An independent researcher, and her attitude suggested she was a misfit of the sort that would fit a confidant. “Sure, I’ll give it a try,” Chou said.

Takemi finally smiled at that. “Good, thank you. In that case, I’m going to take some extra measurements on you, including drawing a small amount of blood. It’s to make a baseline for your health. Come back next Friday and we can begin.”

The chime of a new confidant sounded in her head. “All right, see you then.”

* * *

When Chou came into Leblanc, Sojiro felt a little relieved. “Hey, could you help out with the dishes?” he asked her.

“Sure, after I drop off my bag upstairs,” she said. The white tip of a tail poked out of her bag, so the cat was back with her.

It had been a busy day and the dirty cups had stacked up before he realized it. Chou didn’t complain, just got right to work. In the meantime, he listened to customers talk and took care of orders as they came in. Some days it felt like all he did was listen to people complain. However, listening to people was a good way to get customers to come back. A safe comfortable place where others cared enough to listen without judgment; it was sad, but that was something people would pay for.

When things slowed down and he could send Chou to wash the tables, he considered again the request from Futaba. She seemed to be interested in Chou even if they weren’t as alike as she may have hoped. It was promising since he’d had such trouble talking to her. So far, Chou seemed like a decent girl. And yet, there was that bit of doubt, no, a lot of doubt. He hadn’t known Chou for long and she could be a really good actress.

He pondered it until the cafe was finally empty. At that point, he had to at least ask the question for Futaba. “Hey, do you have any interest in computers?”

“I’d like to get one,” Chou said. “It’d help a lot with schoolwork. If I do some more work, I’m sure I could pick up something soon. Maybe even now if I can get a good deal.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sojiro said.

“You know a good place I can buy a computer?” she asked.

“As far as I know, the big electronics store in Akihabara might be your best bet,” he said. “Although I’m sure there’s plenty of other stores that would sell computers around, just have to find them. That’s the one everyone knows about.”

Chou nodded. “All right, I’ll see about looking for sales or such. Thanks for letting me know.”

“But are you interested in computer programming and such things?” he asked.

“It’d be neat to learn, but I haven’t tried yet,” she said. “What, do you know computer programming?”

He chuckled. “No, I only know enough about them to do some record keeping. I was just curious; lots of kids seem to know how to work with computers in depth.”

“Kids my age have grown up with computers, so of course,” Chou said. “I entertained myself with books from the library.”

“Did you not have your own computer?” he asked. Some of his customers who had children talked about buying electronics for them, and he often looked for things for Futaba.

But she shook her head. “My mother brought home her laptop sometimes, but it was geared for her job. I used computers in libraries or school, so it’ll be nice to have my own.”

That might disappoint Futaba. But who knew? She was curious about someone else now, enough that she might try coming out of the house. Maybe; Sojiro hoped so. He still wasn’t sure about telling Chou about Futaba. If he could just be certain she was a good kid and not a bad influence…

When closing time approached (although closing time was always fluid), he decided to make her an offer. “Hey, you interested in learning how to make coffee? I’m sure you could impress your friends if you can brew a good cup of coffee.”

“That sounds pretty good,” Chou said, coming over to lean on the counter.

“All right, we’ve got some time, so let me show you how it’s done.” No matter how talented she might be, it’d take more than a few tries to get good at coffee brewing. Maybe it would be a challenge that would interest her.

* * *

4/23

When Chou got to school, the halls were buzzing with gossip and students were gathered around a new posting. But it wasn’t something pinned to the bulletin boards. It was a number of papers attached onto the walls. The crowd was enough that Chou found it easier to take a picture with her camera, then go aside to see what it was about.

“Is this a prank like the card the other day?”

“If it is, someone really has something against Kamoshida.”

“No, it’s no prank! People saw Kamoshida here early; he glued these to the wall with rubber cement!”

“No way, that’s crazy!”

“It gets crazier! Cause then he begged some people to call the police to arrest him, and they did!”

“Somebody recorded it and posted it on the school board; you’d better take a look at it before the principal takes it down.”

Zooming in on the pictures, she saw that the papers were a confession of crimes by Kamoshida. He listed his victims by name, then noted what he’d done to them. There were even victims who weren’t connected to the school at all. On the last page, her name was listed among a few others as an admission that he’d spread rumors to slander their reputations and kick them out of school. It wasn’t the truth, but Kamoshida would have no way to know the truth. It might still help.

She went to her classroom to show Morgana the confession. They also looked up the video posted on the school message board. With him on his knees and sobbing, he seemed like an entirely different person. Kamoshida mentioned driving a student to suicide and putting others in the hospital. He didn’t mention who those individuals were in the video. And when she checked, his confession about Yuuki mentioned hospitalizing him, but did not specify the suicide attempt. Perhaps in some way, he saw that as thoughtful.

“Wow, that’s quite a change,” Morgana said about the video. “Though his desires were very distorted.”

“It might disappoint the students who were going to band together to report him,” Chou said quietly. “But then, this has improved their lives dramatically. It should make the school a better place.”

“I agree. Hey, wanna do something to celebrate our success? This is a great accomplishment and I couldn’t have done it without you.” Her ears were peaked eagerly and she patted Chou’s wrist with her paw.

Smiling, Chou put a finger to Morgana’s nose. “Sure, but let’s discuss this after school.”

“Hey Ann?” The girl wasn’t calling for her, but it still got Chou’s attention. She glanced over to see that Ann had just come into the classroom.

“Hmm, what is it?” Ann asked, stopping by the desks of two girls who had been chatting.

“We just wanted to say that we’re sorry about talking bad about you before,” one of the girls said. “We believed what we were hearing, but didn’t imagine it was because Kamoshida was blackmailing you. That sounds awful.”

“Yeah, nobody should have to deal with that,” the other girl said.

“It’s fine, I’m glad people are hearing the truth now,” Ann said. She went over to her desk and smiled at her. “Good morning, Chou.”

“Good morning Ann,” she said, smiling back. “Good day?”

She chuckled. “So far. It’s strange; I’ve been stopped five times since the train station with people asking me what’s going on with Kamoshida or apologizing.”

“Well it is nice that people are hearing the truth,” Chou said.

Nodding, Ann said, “Yeah, but I’m wondering, you think those strange dreams had anything to do with this? I can’t imagine him realizing that he’s wrong and admitting it like this.”

“It’d be strange, but it’s strange already that you all had similar dreams,” she said.

When they got to lunch with the others, rumors about the dreams had become a hot topic. Shiho confirmed it was widely shared. “Everyone on the volleyball teams experienced the same thing! They were invited by a person to awaken something called a Persona so they could punish Kamoshida; the only thing they can remember about him is that he had red gloves. Then, they were involved in some large fight against a weird exaggeration of Kamoshida. The details of that battle vary, but it humiliated the king and the person with red gloves made Kamoshida feel the weight of his sins.”

“Whoa, this is getting real crazy,” Ryuji said. “And now Kamoshida’s fessed up to everything? Maybe we really did fight him in our dreams.”

Shiho nodded. “There’s people who woke up with unexplained bruises after that large battle. And some of us recall being introduced to the stranger and his partners, although I’m not sure of their names.”

“I remember that too,” Ann said. “And those cards were signed by the phantom thieves of dreams. So these people are real?”

“Maybe,” Ryuji said. “It’d be really cool if they were. I mean, they made Kamoshida completely change so that bastard realized he was a bastard. I heard he talked about maybe committing suicide, but he decided that he had to live to atone instead. Seems like he was a real mess.”

“This is like an amazing story,” Chou said. “Now you guys are free.”

“Yeah, we are,” Shiho said, more cheerful than Chou had seen her. “Because of the phantom thieves, I feel like I can see the lies that Kamoshida made me think were true, a lot of terrible things. He almost ruined volleyball for me, but now I think I can enjoy it again.”

“But is the volleyball team going to stick together without a coach?” Ann asked.

“I don’t know,” Shiho said. “But, I hope we can.” She chuckled at a thought. “We proved ourselves in dreams that we can overcome Kamoshida. I’d like it if we can prove that we can do the same awake.”

“I hope they give you guys a chance to do that,” Ryuji said.

“Hey, maybe you can do the same for the track team,” Ann suggested.

“I dunno about that,” he said. “But, it would be nice to have the team back.”

“The volleyball team was going to meet up this afternoon already,” Shiho said. “I’ll see about asking if others want to keep on with competing for Nationals. Who know how we’ll do on our own, but it’d be good to try.”

Perhaps because of that end to their lunchtime discussion, Ann turned around to her when classes ended. “Hey, you want to hang out today? I can take you to a cool place where we could pick up some fun clothes.”

“Sure, sounds good to me,” Chou said, putting her things away while leaving space in her bag. “Do you mind, Morgana?”

“Aw, I wanted to celebrate,” the cat said, slipping out of the desk. “But you should be acting as a normal student, so all right, we’ll see where Ann wants to go.”

Ann chuckled. “She’s a really chatty cat.”

“Chatty cats are fun,” Chou said. “She’s sneaky too, so she should be fine.”

“All right, let’s go!” Once they were outside of Shujin on their way to the train station, Ann added, “Oh yeah, I wanted to thank you for helping me and Shiho out, Ryuji too.”

“How’ve I helped you?” she asked.

“Well, I guess it’s your perspective as a transfer student?” Ann said. “I mean, you weren’t involved with this phantom thief business, but before then, you convinced me to not give in to Kamoshida. And because of that, we could help Shiho a little. I’m sure she’s going to be a lot happier now that Kamoshida’s been arrested. You helped us with the last few days before this miracle happened.”

“Well I’d like to thank you again for giving me a chance,” Chou said.

“Guess we’re all helping each other out,” Ann said cheerily. It looked like a real cheer this time. “Anyhow, I was wondering if you had much for clothes beyond school uniforms.”

“Not now,” she said. “A lot of my old clothes are still at home since my parents couldn’t mail me everything. Not that I had much; I’ve been having some trouble finding a style that suits me.”

“Really?” Ann asked. “You could use some more feminine things; you seem very boyish.”

“Hey, it’s fun dressing up like a boy sometimes,” Chou said jokingly. “And I make a really pretty boy at that.”

Ann laughed. “I’d believe that. You could pull off the boy’s uniform pretty well.”

“There’s no rule against it,” Chou said. “Though I would like to try something more feminine now. As I said, I’m really not sure what kind of look would be best for me.”

“I’ll see if I can help, but I’m not exactly an expert,” Ann said. “I mean, I am a model, but usually the staff picks out things for me.”

“You’re a model?” she asked. “You certainly have the looks, but isn’t it a really competitive field?”

“I guess so,” she said, giving a shrug. “But then, it’s mostly a hobby for me, for some extra money. See, my parents are both fashion designers. I got started because of them.”

“You didn’t learn about fashion from them?”

Ann shrugged. “Maybe a little bit. But they’re both pretty famous and put on their own shows all over the world. I don’t see much of them.”

“I can understand that,” Chou said. “I mean, my parents aren’t famous, but they’re both really busy with their jobs. They worked in town but sometimes I wouldn’t see them for days.”

“That sucks, doesn’t it?” Ann asked.

Ann then took her out to Harujuku, a neighborhood that was full of clothing stores. She said it was good for finding styles that weren’t the most popular. Finding a unique style when she wasn’t a typical girl; that sounded great. Of course, it took some searching to find things that flattered her build. She was tall and lanky when a lot of girls around her age were petite.

She was able to find some nice pants. “I find pants more comfortable than skirts most of the time,” Chou said. “Like this time of year when you still need stockings on cooler days.”

“I could see that,” Ann said. “The look of a good skirt is really nice, although that draws perverts in.”

“People like Kamoshida was?” Chou asked.

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, though he’s not the only one. He first noticed me at a show and kept talking about how good my legs look when I show them off. I hate that, though at the same time, I like looking good. I dunno, is that strange?”

“I don’t think so,” Chou said. “He was being disrespectful to you.”

“I guess,” Ann said, taking a shirt off a rack. It was red blouse with black lace and ruffles. “Ooo, look at this.”

“That’s sassy and sexy,” she said. “I’d think it’d look good on you.”

“You agree?” she asked, looking over the blouse uncertainly. “It would be nice… actually, you remember when we were talking about awakening Personas in our dreams? These Personas are like who we could be, at least that’s what the phantom thief said. My Persona turned out to be an amazing woman, Carmen. I looked her up and she’s from a famous opera, a woman who is proud of her beauty and does what she wants without regards for what’s expected by society.”

“She does sound amazing,” Chou said. “I could see you like that.”

“Huh, really?” Ann didn’t seem embarrassed by it. “Well, she is who I’d like to be. But, I’m not sure. I nearly gave in to Kamoshida; I don’t want to give in to another, but men like that are hard to deal with. They just won’t take no for an answer; he didn’t even listen when he was acting nice.”

“You can’t give up just because of one bad man,” she said. “There’s lots of better guys out there, just about all of them.”

“You do have a point.” She held up the shirt to check the size. “It should fit me. Actually, I’d not heard of Carmen before, but she is like a lot of women on TV shows that I’ve liked. Like, there’s this show about a guy who fights crime as a superhero that I loved watching as a kid. My favorite character was the villainous lady who kept teasing him, sometimes even helped him. She was cool, confidant, and sexy. Even though she was a villain, I wanted to be like her.”

“Well why not?” Chou said. “I like those characters too.”

Ann nodded. “Women like that are so cool. I don’t understand why they’re villains most of the time. They should make more confidant woman heroes. I bet they’d be really popular.”

“I’d certainly like a heroine like that.”

“I think I’ll try this on, maybe with some pants if I can find something that’ll match,” she said. “Black pants, probably… you know, pants might actually look best for you. They’d work with your height. Maybe a longer skirt would look good on you too?”

“You think so?” she asked. Meanwhile another chime went off in her head. It made her feel relieved; it was nice to know that at least two of her friends counted as those confidants. Igor claimed that her relationships with confidants would increase her power with Personas, after all.

Despite claiming she didn’t have much fashion knowledge, Ann still helped her pick out a green skirt and a white blouse that was more of a feminine look for her. She said it was an earthy look for a nature-loving girl; Chou pointed out it was a bit like an old-fashioned delinquent’s look, which she had to agree with. It did make her look more feminine. People wouldn’t mistake her for a boy like this and it wasn’t overly cute. As she wanted another outfit for outside of school, she bought the skirt, blouse, and a pair of black pants since they’d be handy too.

Back on her own in Leblanc, she checked on the confidants list. Ann was marked as The Lovers. And there was Ryuji as Chariot, Igor as Fool, Dr. Takemi as Death, Morgana as Magician, and Sojiro as Heirophant. This clearly had something to do with Tarot cards. Now that she was done with the psychology book, maybe it was time to look for something about Tarot? She had The Neverending Story too, but she knew the book mostly by heart. It’d be nice if she needed something comforting.

Sojiro roped her into doing dishes again, which was fine with her. He had the news playing on the TV. Because of that, she heard a story about Kamoshida’s arrest. Already? He’d only turned himself in this morning. But it would be a story of interest, a teacher and Olympic medalist arrested for rape and abuse. They didn’t mention anything about the calling card or the shared dreams, but that might come out later.

“Hey, isn’t that your school?” Sojiro asked.

“Yeah, people were talking about the arrest all day,” Chou said. “I don’t know him; he’s not one of my teachers.”

“This could make for some trouble,” Sojiro said. “Although, him getting arrested will make some things better. Sheesh, can’t believe a teacher would do such things.”

“My friends are relieved that he’s gone,” she said. Once she was done with the dishes, Sojiro had her help close up so he could get home.

Back up in their room, Morgana was quick to sit on the couch. “So, celebration?”

Chuckling, Chou rubbed Morgana’s head as she sat by her. “There’s no school tomorrow. I wonder if there’s some cat-friendly sushi place around.” She got out her phone to do a search.

“Sushi?” Morgana asked, standing on her hind legs to try peeking at her search.

Chou lowered her phone so Morgana didn’t have to do that. “Fish. Every cat I’ve known likes fish; I’m sure you’d at least like shashimi.”

“I’m all for trying something new,” she said, sitting back down.

“How about that?” she said, picking a place the search found. “There is a sushi restaurant around that welcomes cats as guests. It comes with plenty of good reviews too. While it’ll be a splurge, we do have the money from selling that medal.”

“Great! We could also look for your computer thing too, right? Because Sojiro said you’d want to go elsewhere in the city for one.”

“It’s in another place, but sure.” She looked up information on the store he had mentioned.

“For tonight, though, there was something I wanted to teach you,” Morgana said. “You know how we hide in the shadows of Palaces? Part of that is hiding the light of your soul; it’s properly called an aura. You can disguise your aura in this world too. I’ve tried it myself, so I know it works.”

“What would hiding like that do in the real world?” The store gave her an ad page of what sales they had going on, so she skimmed over it.

“There are some folks who know how to find people by auras,” she explained. “Persona users like us would stand out to them. Besides that, if you know how to hide your aura, you’ll be able to hide in plain sight. Most people don’t believe in auras and magic, but they are affected by them on an unconscious level.”

“Like how Palaces give off a negative aura to make people unhappier?” Chou asked.

Morgana nodded. “Exactly. Of course, if they’re looking right at you and there’s not many other people, you wouldn’t be able to hide like that. But in places like Shibuya or Shujin where there’s a lot of people around and many things to pay attention to, hiding your aura would make others pass you off as unimportant. Their unconscious mind will gladly ignore you because there’s too much else to pay attention to.”

“I get that,” she said, pausing in her coupon skimming to look at Morgana. “I’ve made use of a less mystical version of that to avoid notice. Dress plain and average, not too messy; that will make people think you’re unimportant. It’s like how everyone who’s seen me as Joker only remembers the red gloves. The color of the gloves stand out enough that it’s the only remarkable thing about me.”

“Them seeing things as a dream affects that too,” Morgana said. “Hiding your aura won’t fool cameras and other mechanical things, but you may be able to make use of this skill.”

Nodding, she closed the search window to put her phone aside. “Sure, how does hiding aura work?”

“It should be like hiding in shadows. Calm your mind and use your third eye to get a sense for your own aura.”

It wasn’t as easy to hide in the real world, as grasping the concept wasn’t enough. But she managed it and was able to stay hidden for five minutes by the time it got late enough to go to bed.

* * *

‘There was a lot of fuss at school over the volleyball coach being arrested. He had several papers listing his crimes glued to the wall where everyone could see them. As it turns out, he was the one who told everyone about my probation status. I’m hoping that quells the gossip.

‘I went clothes shopping with Ann. Got a few pieces for days off, but a computer of my own would be more useful. I believe I can get one now. Ann was in a really good mood like my other friends. But the shopping trip showed that she underestimates herself. She claims she doesn’t know much about fashion, but she has a good eye for sizes and the outfit she helped me with is pretty nice. Maybe I can help her gain more confidence in herself.’


	14. Sushi Celebration

4/24

A teenage boy walked into the evidence lab of the Tokyo police headquarters. Although it was a Sunday, he was wearing a spotless white school uniform. It was for one of the most prestigious schools in Tokyo, something to be proud of. His brown hair was carelessly kept, but he was otherwise immaculate in appearance. “Excuse me,” he said, smiling with a practiced charm.

“Ah, Akechi,” one of the technicians said, nodding to him. “What brings you here?”

“Did you get the message to prioritize the evidence around the Kamoshida case?” Goro said, glancing at the table. There was a torn postcard there, rather garishly colored in red and purple. “There’s a few of us who have a hunch that it may be more important than it appears.”

The technician nodded. “Of course, I’m already on it. Here, this is the so-called calling card that appeared a couple of days before Kamoshida turned himself in. Remember not to touch it unless you have gloves.”

“Of course,” he said, watching as the technician put the torn halves together. Nearby, there was another copy of the card that only had a pinhole in it. He got some gloves on to check them himself. “Anything interesting?”

“Several things,” the technician said. “We collected three of these calling cards. There’s fingerprints, so far identified as Kamoshida, the school staff members who turned them in, and a few unregistered ones that are likely students of Shujin. The unregistered ones are only on one card each so far; there’s no consistent set of prints. Kamoshida’s the one who tore this one; it was in his trashcan and it’s noticeably different than the others.”

With the gloves on, Goro picked up the whole copy to read over. He noticed one thing immediately. “Hmm, this one is thin cardstock, but that one looks sturdier.”

“It is unique in the higher quality and effort,” the technician explained. “It was taped to his door rather than pinned onto a bulletin board. Also, the letters here are stickers. I’m running a search, but I believe this is from a novelty sticker printer.”

“Then it would be a telltale clue to who it is?” he asked.

“Not necessarily. For certain models, yes, it’d be a strong clue. But there are popular sticker printers out there that would frequently be used by people who do crafts or keep scrapbooks, or kids who want to print their own stickers. It’d be supporting evidence, not enough for a conviction.”

“I see,” Goro said. “I’m very curious about this case, so I hope I can see a report on it later.”

“Sure, I’ll keep you informed if anything more interesting comes up,” the technician said.

After checking in with a few others who had information on the Kamoshida case, Goro left the police headquarters in order to make a call. It was a special number that was only given out as necessary. “What have you found so far?”

“There is a strong possibility that this is another Metaverse user,” Goro said, muffling his voice outside the call by seeming to rub his nose. “Not sure of how many. Early testimonies suggest that this confession was a result of a nightmare, in ways that are similar to dreams people have had because a user has gone into their mental landscape. I knew he had a Palace; it had low-level Shadows inside, so it could be new users.”

“Any idea of who this group is?”

“Not yet,” he said. “The calling cards have no consistent fingerprints. The electricity was somehow shut off for the school early that morning, so there’s no videos of who posted the cards. From that, we can assume that this was carefully planned. It seems a little much for a student, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

“This seems like more than mere coincidence. Any word from your guide?”

“No, just the usual vagueness. I couldn’t get them to say whether or not this was a Metaverse user, only that it might be.”

“At any rate, we need to get to the bottom of this soon. Figure out who they are and stop them.”

“Of course, I won’t let them win.” Once the call ended, Goro chuckled to himself. “Another challenger? This should be fun; I hope they put up more of a fight than the others.”

* * *

The restaurant was called Fisher’s Delight. There was a dining counter around the chef’s prep area, but for those who brought cats in, they had to take a table in another room to keep them out of any food prep area. On looking at a sample menu, Chou asked for the blue plate platter for them both. The waiter also brought a pretty water dish and matching small plate to go along with Morgana’s portion.

Morgana quickly devoured a couple slices of shashimi. “Wow, this is soooo good!” she said, taking a moment to wipe her face in case a bit of fish got there.

“Yeah, this is a great place,” Chou said. “This fish must be very fresh, and they’re clever to take the move of offering this cat parlor. Any other restaurant would kick us out if they caught sight of you.”

“Then we ought to come here again to try more fish,” Morgana said. “Fine dining is an essential of style for a phantom thief, you know.”

“I think you just like the fish,” she teased.

“No, style is super important!”

“Such theatrics do make for a better legend later on,” Chou said. “Did you remember anything after stealing the Treasure?”

“Nothing substantial,” she said. “I’m certain that I have a mission and it has something to do with a Trickster. Like, I’m meant to guide you somewhere. I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s to the depths of Mementos.”

“What is this Mementos? You’ve mentioned it a few times.” She put another slice of her shashimi on the cat’s plate.

She ate a bit before explaining. “Remember how Kamoshida had a Palace because of heavily distorted desires? Lots of people have Shadow selves; even you did before you transformed it into your Persona. But it’s only people with heavily distorted desires that form a Palace. For everyone else, their Palace is Mementos. If you’re not navigating a specific self layer of the Metaverse, you’re most likely to find a person’s Shadow inside Mementos. It may be the origin of all Palaces, maybe even all the distortions in the world. Whether it is or not, there’s something very important about Mementos to have become the Palace of the general public.”

“You’re right, that does sound suspicious,” Chou said. “Can we go explore it?”

“Of course,” Morgana said. “I’ve explored around by myself and meant to take you in when a good chance came up. We were just busy with Kamoshida because he was an immediate problem.”

“If we have time after checking out computers, want to try today?” she asked.

“Sure, we could take a short look around inside. The easiest entrance is in Shibuya, but we might find others. You’ll understand why when we go in, I think.”

When she got the bill, the waiter offered her a membership card. “Your cat has been well-behaved this visit, so we’d like you to have this as a welcome customer. You may get some special offers at other cat-related stores around the city with this, even here if she continues to be a good guest.”

Special deals? That was even better. “Thank you, we’re both really happy with this place.”

“Yes, you’re wonderful!” Morgana said.

“Thank you,” the waiter said stoically, giving a bow before moving on.

After paying for their meal, they headed off to catch a train to Akihabara. It was a busy place: maids were there advertising cafes, a large group of capsule machines were standing against a wall, people were chatting about electronics and gadgets. The electronics store was right at the corner. But across the way by the capsule machines, she spotted someone familiar. She nearly missed him because he wasn’t in uniform, but it seemed to be Yuuki. He had a bandage wrapped over his right eye and wore a long-sleeved turtleneck despite the mild spring weather.

He was out of the hospital, though. Chou went over to greet him, hoping that he might not mind a chat and an attempt to cheer him up.

* * *

Things seemed unreal. Yuuki still didn’t know what all happened on that terrible day. At times, he wondered why he had survived or if it was worth surviving. At other times, sometimes mere minutes apart, he felt grateful to be alive. Often that feeling came with a reminder of his dream talks with the strange people who encouraged him. And there was that stranger Persona that was protecting him too. If he could figure it out, Beholder could help him see truth. That was something that could make him special. But was he worthy of being special?

Even with what had happened, his parents were still busy with their own lives. Yuuki was on his own today. He decided to come to Akihabara. The bustle and energy here was something he enjoyed, even though most of the time he felt like he couldn’t be a part of it. When he had spare money, he liked looking through the retro game store in case he could find some cheap gem of a game. If he could, he’d work there, or somewhere else around here. But lots of people wanted that; open positions didn’t last long in this neighborhood.

“Hey, Yuuki.”

“Huh?” The voice out of the crowd startled him. Who recognized him here? It was a pretty girl wearing a white and green blouse and matching ankle-length skirt. Her bag didn’t match, but she had an elegant air to her. His heart beat a little faster just as he finally recognized her face. “Oh, Chou?”

She nodded. This was weird; she looked good in the Shujin uniform, but this made her a whole lot prettier. And no pretty girl would just talk to him out of a crowd, at least he’d thought so. “How are you doing?”

“Uh, I’ve been better, but I wanted to get out somewhere,” Yuuki said, rubbing his head. “Hey, um, there was something I wanted to say to you…”

“You can stop apologizing for that leak,” Chou said. “I understand. Kamoshida forced you into it, but he’s gone now.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” he said. Should he still be surprised? Maybe she was just a really nice person. “It was a shock, but a huge relief. But how did you figure out that I leaked information about you?”

She took out her phone. “You left a note in my desk explaining about it. I turned it over to Ms. Kawakami, but I took a photo of it. Want to see it if you don’t remember?”

A note he’d forgotten about? This was getting scary. But it was something he should face. That was a silent reassurance from his Persona. “Uh, sure.”

“Here you go,” she said, passing over her phone.

It was messy, but he recognized his own writing. Towards the end, it got incoherent. Understandable, he’d taken a head injury in that mess. “Huh… I really helped defend Shiho?”

“Sure, she told me about it,” Chou said. “She’s been really upset, at least until the past couple of days. Kamoshida’s arrest was preceded by some lucid dreams around the coach and some person with red gloves, at least for her and some others.”

“Her too?” he asked. “Well, of course. I had some dreams about them too; those dreams have been a big help, part of the reason I felt like I could go out today. Did you dream about that?”

She shook her head. “No, but it seems everyone on the volleyball team did. And the track team, and Ann. It’s pretty amazing.”

“You have no idea if you haven’t had one of those dreams yourself,” Yuuki said, feeling some excitement. He gave her phone back. “I’ve been watching the school message board closely ever since I heard Kamoshida got arrested and it’s incredible. From all that, it feels like the dreams were real and had an effect on the world.”

“I’m glad you guys are free of an abusive coach,” Chou said. “But have you changed your mind from the note? You can’t be worthless. This could be the time to find yourself.”

“That’s what my therapist said earlier today,” Yuuki said. “Well, I’ve kind of changed? I’m not at a hundred percent yet, though I’ll come back to school tomorrow. Things just feel strange now; I wouldn’t have believed that Kamoshida could get arrested, nor that he’d confess his crimes himself. But I’ve realized that a lot of terrible things I believed are things that he put in my head. I do need to find myself, figure out what to do.”

“I’m sure you can do it,” she said, nodding with encouragement.

“Heh, thanks Amamiya-san,” Yuuki said, smiling although he felt nervous. “You’re really nice; I don’t meet many people who are this nice to me.”

“I hope that changes,” she said. “And you don’t need to be formal with me; it’s fine.”

“Oh, thanks Chou,” he said. “In that case, you can be informal with me. So what are you doing here?”

“I came to buy a computer, maybe,” she said, glancing over at the electronics superstore across the street. “I’d like to have one for schoolwork. Just, I’ve not had my own computer, much less bought one. I’m not entirely sure what to look for, but I figured I’d start looking.”

“I might be able to help you there,” Yuuki said, hoping he might get asked to help. “I’m pretty good with computers myself; I’ve even taken some web design and programming classes on my own.”

“Nice, would you help me out?”

“Sure, it’s no trouble,” Yuuki said. This was so lucky, he thought. He just needed to make sure that she didn’t decide that he was a loser.

* * *

4/25

Chou ended up chatting with Yuuki long enough that they got dinner together. That made it too late by the time they got back to Shibuya to check out Mementos. However, Morgana agreed that it was a good thing to be friendly with Yuuki. She agreed even more on being told about the Confidant thing with the app, as Yuuki was now marked as The Moon. Mementos would be around for when they were ready.

Yuuki was at his desk when she arrived in the classroom, being questioned by some of their classmates about Kamoshida’s confession. He seemed overwhelmed, but he did smile when she waved to him. Ann was talking with another of their classmates. When classes started, Ann paid more attention to the lectures, a good sign she was in a better mood. And history class did have something interesting for Chou to listen to, so it turned out to be a good day.

Her friends ended up busy; Ryuji and Ann had work to do, and Shiho had come to their class to get Yuuki for a volleyball team meeting. Chou picked up a few drinks just in case and went to Shibuya at Morgana’s direction. To avoid the bustle of the crowds, Chou had to find an out of the way corner to bring out her phone. “This place has always been busy, even on that early morning train,” she said. “I could believe that a place like Mementos would be here.”

“It’s a huge sprawling place, so it might have entrances in any subway station of this city,” Morgana said. “But we’ll focus on here because I recall this area of the dungeon. Your app should allow you to pick Mementos as a location since we’re here.”

“All right,” she said, opening up the Metaverse app.

But when she picked ‘Navigate Mementos’, another tutorial window popped up. ‘Mementos is the collective Palace of the general public. Shadow Shelves of those without a Palace may be found here, as well as buds of a forming Palace from a person who is growing distorted. To find a person’s Shadow, one must accept a request with a full name in order to locate them out of the general public. To find a Palace bud, one may simply run across it or may search with a request with a full name. Please take the three selected requests in order to navigate to Mementos for the first time. All three will be located in the initial floors from the Shibuya entrance.’

Chou grumbled on seeing that. “It wants me to take three requests in Mementos as the tutorial here.”

“On one hand, that would be efficient,” Morgana said. “On the other hand, I can imagine this app won’t let us go back home until the three requests are done, aside from using a Goho-M again.”

“Probably not,” she said, sitting down and looking at the requests. “But we’ll have to do this to get access to Mementos to search for clues about you. Might as well get it over with.”

“So what requests are available?” she asked, put her paws on Chou’s lap to get a better look.

“It’s already picked out three for us.” She lowered her phone so they could both read them.

‘Daisuke Takanashi- Does this really work? Can’t hurt, so this guy has been bullying me and other freshmen to pay him off. He gave me a bloody lip once and has threatened to do the same to others. Please stop him, I don’t want to have to skip lunches anymore!’

‘Shinju Itou- this girl took an upskirt photo of me to get a peek at my panties and now she’s threatening to post it onto the internet! I can’t believe another girl would do that. I really don’t want that photo posted, so make her stop this perv habit and erase the pictures she’s taken.’

‘Hayate Minami- this is my father and he keeps getting drunk and beating us up. Mom has a broken arm now, but she says that she deserves it for making him upset. Do we really? Could you steal his heart so he doesn’t do this to us anymore?’

“So two that are serious, and one that’s serious but strange,” Chou said.

“I wonder how you got those requests when we’ve only just made our debut,” Morgana said.

She shrugged. “There’s been a rumor going around about it somehow, before I even got started. The people who sent these must feel really stuck to be doing this. Or just curious.”

“I guess the how doesn’t matter as long as we get these done so the app stops restricting you,” she said. “Just accept those and transport us to Mementos.”

Nodding, Chou confirmed the three requests and sent a warning text. It could be simple, so she put ‘You have sinned; we are coming to steal your distorted heart’ into a text to each of them. When she had confirmation that all three had read it, she hit the ‘Navigate Mementos’ button. Everyone around them slowed to a stop. After a moment, the lights dimmed and the crowd turned into a faceless vague mass. The station almost went silent as a wind that hadn’t been there before blew towards the stairs. She was also now in Joker’s outfit, with Morgana in her cartoony form.

“If we leave the station, we’ll just slip into your or my layer of the Metaverse,” Morgana said. “This is the doorway, pretty much. We need to head down to really enter the place.”

When they went down the nearest set of stairs, they ended up at a platform that was at the end of a line. There were other ways it didn’t look right, like the indistinct posters on the walls and the flickering lighting. The rails went off into a dark tunnel that curved away almost immediately. “This place feels off,” Joker said. “I mean, it’s clearly wrong in not being the platform that’s around here normally. But something else doesn’t feel right.”

“You’re feeling all the small distortions that the general public shares,” Ace said. “These are little white lies that people tell themselves to make things tolerable. This level is pretty mild.”

“Do you remember how to navigate around here?” she asked.

She looked uneasy, much easier to see with her like this. “Um… I know this place is sprawling and huge. I know I’ve gotten lost in Mementos; this is where I became like this instead of being a human. But my clearer memories are after I got out here. We really need the ability to come and go freely so we don’t get in trouble like that. Also, we need to keep moving because there’s a highly dangerous Shadow that lurks in the tunnels of Mementos. If you keep moving, you’re fine. But if we stall around on a level too much, it will come.”

Joker rubbed at her forehead. She would have liked to have known about that before jumping straight in here. Then again, if Ace hadn’t become her partner, the app might have forced her into this tutorial at some point and left her alone without that information. “All right, then let’s get searching for these targets.”

“Oh wait, I do have something that’ll help make this trek better!” Ace said, running over to the edge of the platform. “That’s the ticket! All right, keep clear.” She hopped down onto the rails.

But what landed on the rails was not a cat. Instead, there was now a cat-like van in front of Joker. She was still black with white trim; her eyes were now headlights, her ears sat on top like speakers, and her paws were now wheels. Although now a van, she still had a tail extended out from above her bumper.

“You can transform into a van?” Joker asked. This was stranger than usual.

“It’s my super secret power,” Ace said, her headlights shifting to look her way. “All the narrow furnished halls made it useless for Kamoshida’s palace, but this transformation is perfect for this place. We might wear ourselves out if we tried walking to the targets in here.”

Rubbing her head, she said, “That’s handy, but still, a van?”

“That’s another one of my mysteries, I suppose,” she said. “For some reason, cats turning into vehicles is a fairly widespread cognition. I don’t know why that is either, it just is.”

That made her smile a little. “I think I’ll have to find a movie for you. Anyhow, do I need to drive you?”

“Yeah, but I can teach you on the way.”

“This is weird, but sure, sounds fun too.” She opened up the door to the driver’s seat, trying not to think too hard about all this. The Metaverse was a dream world of sorts and normal logic didn’t apply. After switching Ace’s engine on, Joker drove away from the platform under her instructions. It took a little while to get used to, but then felt easy to control.

The subway tunnels were dark and winding, splitting off in strange ways and curving around like normal subway tunnels wouldn’t. There were Shadows here too, in strange forms with many eyes and shifting bodies. With Ace as a van, Joker could run them over, then hop out and battle them with Ace once she transformed back. The Shadows were a mix of forms, some like what were in Kamoshida’s Palace, others becoming beings that Joker hadn’t seen before. Joker used the opportunity to practice her fighting and recruit some new Personas.

After a while, they encountered another platform with escalator stairs that headed down. Not far along the next level, there was a spot where the rails twisted up off the ground and headed into a glowing red portal. “There, one of our targets is going to be in there,” Ace said. “Drive on through.”

Passing through the portal was like driving through a psychedelic red hallway. It turned all black after a few seconds, then spat them out in a room that had rails running up the walls and across the ceiling in twisted ways. In the center of the room, a boy was pacing around with black flames swirling around his feet. He paused as she came out and Ace transformed back into a cat. “What are you guys doing here?” the boy asked.

“This is Daisuke, the bully,” Ace said. “We’re here to stop you from beating up others and stealing their money!”

“Hey, I’m not the bully around here,” Daisuke said. “I have to do this. Leave me be.”

“You don’t have to hurt others, ever,” Joker said. “We’re going to stop you.”

“Damn, if you want a fight, then I have to,” he said, transforming into strange gremlin creature. “But if I win, I get your money!”

“Not gonna happen,” Joker said.

Daisuke’s gremlin form was stronger than most other Shadows she’d fought, similar to the archangel. She and Ace still defeated him, returning him to his human form. “W-wait, I had to do this! Really!”

“Why would you think that?” Joker asked.

“Someone else has blackmail material over me,” he said. “I have to pay him off or he’ll post a really embarrassing video of me online. I’m not at fault!”

“You are at fault because you hurt others and took their money,” she said. “You should have found another way to solve your problem. As it is, you can send an email to yourself on your phone with the name of the guy blackmailing you.”

“Why would I do that?” Daisuke asked, confused.

“Because then we can hunt him down too,” Ace said.

“Then you can take care of the one who’s really at fault,” Daisuke said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

The connection power came up again; it wasn’t as powerful, but she still winced on mentally seeing him punch another student and threaten others. He had been afraid, but so were his victims. “No, you’ve done wrong,” Joker said, letting him feel the weight of his sins.

“I, I had to…” he got choked up, then shivered. “No, you’re right, I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to either, but, yeah, I should have found another way. Please, stop this. I’ll send you the message. This should stop.” He then vanished into light, which condensed down to an orb with something inside.

“All right, we’ve got his Treasure!” Ace said. “It would have taken a long time for this to form a proper Palace. But taking this should change his heart.”

“Sure thing,” Joker said, taking the mystery item. It turned into a ring with stars on it.

Deeper into the level, they came to another portal. “This is Hayate, the husband who’s beating his wife and child,” Ace explained.

“He needs to be stopped,” Joker said.

On going into the portal, the room looked different. They were now inside a hot and humid factory. It smelled of lots of people working hard, had a racket of machine and chatter to match. Instead of any particular thing, though, the people in this sweatshop were getting papers, making marks, then passing the papers on to get different marks. The Shadow was obvious from the black flames around him.

“Is this the budding Palace the tutorial mentioned?” Joker asked.

“Yeah, it’s nothing more than this room right now,” Ace said. “Not even any traps or native Shadows yet.”

“Then let’s stop him before it gains those things,” Joker said, approaching the Shadow. “You’ve been reported for beating your family.”

“That’s not important,” the Shadow said, slamming a stack of papers down. “Don’t disrupt me! I’m going to take control of this place; I’m going to escape this drudgery. Then I will finally get what I deserve.”

Ace hopped up on one of the tables so she was seen. “Sure, you deserve a beating and we’re gonna give it to you.”

“You’re supposed to take care of your family, not beat them,” Joker said.

“I am taking care of them, useless lot they are,” the Shadow said. “They can’t improve my work situation, only I can. I earn the money they use, I provide the home they live in, I provide everything they need. And what do they do? They keep nagging me to do things for them after I get home after a long day of work! Home should be my refugee, not another sweatshop. They’re my family, I give them everything, so I should be able to do what I want with them. Don’t butt into other people’s business.”

“They’re your family so you should take care of them, not harm them,” she repeated. “You’re being cruel and selfish.”

“It’s not cruel, it’s my right as a hard-working man!” He transformed into a nasty looking ogre that carried the trunk of a tree as a massive club. He quickly slammed the club into the worktables, just barely missing smashing Ace straight in the head. The tables got wrecked into splintery pieces.

As the fight continued, it was clear that the Shadow had a lot of power. He didn’t have the greatest aim, especially once Joker cast Sukukaja on both herself and Ace. The rubble he kept making did become an obstacle, making their footing less stable. While they could ignore it through confidence, it did create lots of shrapnel when Ace tried to clear it out of the way with Magaru. There wasn’t a way to control the shrapnel, but they had healing magic while the ogre Shadow didn’t.

Once they had the Shadow defeated, the sweatshop dissolved into a rail room like the other. The Shadow of Hayate grabbed his head. “I, I am a hard-working man! I deserve better.”

“So does your family,” Joker said.

“Right, your responsibility as a man is to take good care of your family,” Ace said. “Be a proper husband and father!”

“That won’t advance my career,” he said.

“Do you think of nothing but your job?” Joker asked, angry because she’d seen this attitude far too much. “Think on this.” She gave him the connection to his sins. The beating and verbal abuse of his family was what she knew; what else was there was betrayal of co-workers, verbal abuse and passive-aggressive bullying, many incidents of altering records to make his work look better that ended up damaging his company and their clients. “You don’t deserve better.”

“I, I can’t keep up, the pressure is too intense.” He quivered. “If I confess to all this, my life is ruined.”

“And it would be your own fault,” Joker said sharply. “Take the consequences of your decisions.”

“Ah, okay… it is my fault. I need to find some way to atone.” He vanished, leaving behind a spiked chain bracelet.

“Hey, that could add to the power of your attacks,” Ace said. “But, are you okay? You were losing your cool talking to him.”

“His attitude was a lot like my parents, except they aren’t violent,” she said. “And when I do this thing to make them feel the weight of their sins, I see what they’ve done. I don’t feel it like they do, but seeing these things is pretty awful on its own.”

“Huh, that would be an ugly thing to witness,” she said, her ears turned down. “Even with Kamoshida?”

She nodded. “Even with him. This guy was cheating at his work too, taking out his frustrations on his wife and child because he thought he should control everything about his household.”

“It’s the excuses that become accepted reasons as they get away with stuff, those cause distortion,” Ace said. “I feel pretty bad for you. I mean, these people need something to break their faulty reasoning. But you don’t deserve to suffer with them.”

“I suppose forcing people to change their hearts is a sin too,” Joker said, glancing at her red gloves. “They can’t stop us from doing this. But I feel it’s worth doing. They aren’t going to stop on their own or be convinced through normal reason.”

“Maybe we should avoid doing too many requests at once,” Ace suggested. “You all right for finding the last target?”

She nodded. “Sure, I’ll be fine.”

They had to go down another level and explore a number of tunnels in order to find their last target. In another rail room, they found a girl in a uniform for a school other than Shujin. “Hey, are you the jerks who sent that weird text message to me?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at them.

“Yes, this would be Shinju,” Ace said. “You got called out for taking panty shots of other girls. That’s disgusting!”

“I’m not disgusting,” Shinju insisted. “If you want to call anyone a disgusting sinner, then you should call out the guys who pay a lot of money for these photos. They have no way of telling who the girls are; I make sure of it. But the guys are so desperate for the pics. I’m just putting some business sense to use.”

“You’re not asking the girls for permission,” Joker said. “Probably not paying them either since you’re blackmailing girls who find out.”

“I’m clever, not a sinner!” She burst into a Pixie with red clothes. “You just want to steal my business, huh? Well it was my idea! Don’t steal it!”

“We do not want that business,” Ace said.

It was not a difficult battle, but it was annoying because she kept charming them. After a few tries, Joker managed to panic her and give them some respite to heal up and attack her. She fell quickly once they made that chance. Back to herself, she stepped away from them. “Hey, there shouldn’t be any problems here! I make sure they can’t identify the girls and if the girls didn’t catch me, there’d be no problems. Stop bullying me!”

“You’re enabling perverts and invading on the girls’ privacy,” Joker said, connecting her to her sins. The girl wasn’t taking the shots for herself, but for the money. “You’re taking the easy way to get money through terrible means.”

“I need the money so people didn’t see me as a loser,” Shinju said tearfully. “But I became even worse of a loser, huh? Why is life so unfair?”

“It could have been avoided if you just got a normal job for the money you wanted,” Ace said. “But this is gonna brand you for the rest of your life.”

“This is so unfair,” the girl repeated. “But, it is my own fault. I’ll have to find some way to make things up to the other girls.” She vanished, leaving behind an ornate golden knife.

‘All requests have been completed,’ the navigator app said. ‘Good job.’

“If this wasn’t from an app, I’d say this voice was taunting us,” Joker said.

“It can still be a taunting app,” Ace said. “Do you want to keep going? Or head back? I feel like there’s a rest area ahead we can use as a safe room.”

“Let’s go find that, for next time we come,” she said.

It was draining to use her powers, but it seemed like Mementos would be a valuable location, both in practice and in treasures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if cat-friendly sushi restaurants exist... but no matter, I'm giving Morgana a treat anyhow. On a side note, any random name I use generally comes from the Behind the Name website, which thankfully has a set of Japanese surnames; credit to them for having the resource out there.


	15. The Main Goal

4/25

The chime indicating a confidant rang in her head; it was soon followed by a chime from her phone.

Chou nearly dropped the magazine she’d been reading. What was that? She was in Leblanc, sitting at the counter because there weren’t many customers and she wanted to wind down from the Mementos trip. Sojiro was working on a crossword puzzle at the other end of the counter, while the two elderly customers were discussing a puzzle book. Outside, the rain was picking up again. It was a cozy atmosphere, but why the chimes?

Taking her phone, she noticed that the Metaverse app was open. Swapping over to the confidant list, the one that had changed was… The Fool. It was listed as Arsene. What happened with Igor? Chou checked for more info, only to find a one sentence description on it: is this really Arsene?

She’d gotten a new text message too; it was from Arsene. He was using her calling card logo as an icon. ‘I’ve done it.’

How was this happening? She sent a reply back. ‘Done what?’

Arsene: What’s it look like?

Arsene: Cheating the system. Igor’s been slacking off.

Arsene: And now, you have a stock of nine Personas instead of six. It should be of use since your Confidant circle is growing.

Chou: How does having three more Personas help with confidants?

Arsene: You remember how you acted differently with Bicorn? You can do that with any Persona.

Arsene: Your Confidants will act more favorably to you if your active Persona matches their Arcana. You’ll find it easier to think of ways to please them.

Chou: Like if I have Mokoi active around Takemi, she’d like me better?

Chou: Huh.

Chou: I just wing it based on how they’re reacting to me.

Arsene: This’ll make winging it easier.

Chou: How are you texting me like this? You’re a part of my mind and I know I’m not writing your lines.

Arsene: I am a part of your mind, so I’m not exactly human.

Arsene: But neither is Igor, for that matter.

Arsene: Don’t trust him.

Chou: I had a feeling like that.

Chou: Like, is that Velvet Room really a reflection of my heart?

Arsene: A bit of truth, a bit of lies.

Chou: Then who are you really?

Arsene: I am a Persona of yours.

Arsene: That is also a bit of truth, a bit of lies.

Arsene: Figure that out yourself.

Arsene: Also, pay attention to the news right now. They’d keep this from you for months if they had their way.

On reading that, Chou set her phone down and glanced at the TV. They were in the middle of a report about the frequent public transportation accidents that were happening lately: train derailments, bus drivers losing their minds, cars crashing into storefronts. The newscaster was giving a calm but scathing denouncement of the Ministry of Transport. As they cited reports of maintenance being neglected, Chou wondered what about this political review was important to her.

Then they put on a statement from a member of the National Diet. It was a bald man with an intense look to his eyes. He seemed familiar… then he started speaking, criticizing the transport organizations and bluntly stating that the minister should resign from shame. As he went on about how they needed to tend to the safety of Japanese citizens over profits, Chou tensed up with a powerful fury. That was him. That was the man who’d ruined her life because he didn’t get his way.

And they had his name right on the screen underneath him: Masayoshi Shido.

Shifting her chat with Arsene aside for a moment, Chou did a quick search on his name. He was a member of the ruling party in the National Diet. He had strong positive support from the public in polls; a quick look over his records seemed immaculate. But a couple months ago, some photos had popped up online of Shido with a cut in the middle of his forehead. There was no official explanation of why and some other photos of the time didn’t show the cut. There was even a post complaining that one of the telltale photos had been taken down, although there wasn’t much talk about why.

When she put his name into the Metaverse app, it immediately confirmed that he had a Palace. Chou took a moment to calm herself. The others in Leblanc hadn’t noticed yet; they didn’t need to know about this. Then she texted Arsene, ‘Why keep that information from me? Who could even do that?’

Arsene: The one running this Game, of course. They think it’s inappropriate to share such information so early.

Chou: What, so messing with people’s lives is just a game to them?

Arsene: Yes.

Chou: Then let’s keep ruining their fun with cheating.

Arsene: I was hoping you’d say that.

Arsene: Also, a word of warning.

Arsene: You can visit Shido’s Palace if you like. But at this time, you are incapable of stealing his heart as you did with Kamoshida.

Arsene: Attempting that at this time would be suicidal.

Chou: So I should get stronger before I go there.

Arsense: Not exactly.

Arsene: There is some merit to scouting this Palace out early as some information could be gained even now.

Arsene: It’d be unreasonable for me to get that information to you as I did with Shido’s name. Getting you that much was a greater effort than it appeared.

Arsene: Our enemy could have kept you from making the connection even if you came face to face with Shido.

Chou: Thanks for that.

Arsene: I am thou, thou art I.

He didn’t send any more messages after that, so Chou got her magazine and headed upstairs. Morgana was busily cleaning herself on the bed. “And you deny being a cat,” Chou teased her, tweaking the toes that she had in the air.

“Hey, I gotta keep clean,” she said, twisting herself into a normal sitting position. “What’s up?”

“I found the guy who got me arrested,” she said, turning serious as she showed her the search data on her phone.

“Whoa, good catch,” Morgana said, looking closer at the screen. “Masayoshi Shido… he’s a member in the Diet? Which is…”

“The legislative branch of our government,” Chou explained.

“What?! He’s that important?”

“He’s certainly powerful enough to get away with what he did,” Chou said, sitting down on the bed. “His public record is spotless, probably through means like what put me on probation.”

Morgana nodded “I’d imagine so; that kind of incident isn’t a one-time thing for most rotten sinners. Does he have a Palace?”

She shifted to show that. “Yes, now we just have to figure out where it is.”

“Hopefully the app can help us do that,” Morgana said, looking up at her. “This is great, Chou! We can get revenge on that criminal for you, maybe even clear up your record.”

“That’s the whole reason I agreed to this game,” Chou said. “Not right away, though. I imagine we’ll want to be plenty prepared to fight him.”

“I agree. Hey, we still got a good supply of money, right? We can buy some craft supplies when we have time and I’ll show you how to make some special tools, like the Goho-Ms and smoke bombs.”

“I should probably buy some medicines from Takemi too. Then, let’s go in later.”

* * *

4/26

There was a school assembly in the morning, one that informed them that police detectives were going to be interviewing students and staff today. The vice principal dodged around addressing Kamoshida’s abuses, instead giving them a carefully worded and yet generic message of encouragement that was likely in response to the near suicide and hospitalization of two students. From the grimaces and low chatter around her, it was clear that the other students weren’t happy about how this was being handled. Kamoshida’s confessions were still pasted up on the wall, though, likely because they had been put up there with rubber cement. It seemed as though someone tried to cover them up with a poster only to have someone else tear the poster down.

Back in homeroom, Ms. Kawakami didn’t immediately return to tell them how the day’s schedule was changing due to the assembly. The other students chatted with each other or tried to get homework done. As they did so, Chou wondered about something. She disguised her aura again.

“Trying to cut classes?” Morgana asked from inside her desk.

“I have no leniency, remember?” Chou whispered. “But I think I can get away with something else.” She got up and wrote a message on the empty chalkboard in front.

She returned to her seat in time for Kawakami to finally arrive. “Okay, let’s get things started,” she said, right as her eyes caught what was there. “Hey, who wrote this?”

Chou checked: no chalk dust on her hands thanks to the disposable glasses wipes in her pocket. The rest of the class murmured or giggled at what was now written across the board. ‘TODAY’S SUBJECT: The Great Pants Debate. The Shujin Academy dress code has no rules forbidding boys from wearing skirts or girls from wearing pants, as long as said attire fits the rest of the code. What’s to stop girls from wearing pants to class? Or boys from wearing skirts, but I bet none of them have the guts for that.’

“I didn’t, but is that true?” one of the girls in the middle of class asked. Morgana got curious enough to slip into her lap to get a peek. Chou put one hand on her desk, ready to bring up a paper if Kawakami happened to look her way.

“Well it should be common sense to not leave a loophole like that in the school rules,” Ms. Kawakami said, rubbing her head. “Does one of you want to check on that?”

A few students quickly answered that they would and started looking online with their phones. One student even got the school rules and regulations book from a shelf near his desk to check. In Chou’s lap, Morgana chuckled before slipping back into her hiding hole.

“It’s a little too dramatic, but whoever wrote this does have good clean handwriting,” Ms. Kawakami said with some admiration. “Before we get into this apparent pants debate, gym class is still a study hall or independent gym time until we can hire a new boys gym teacher. The Shujin volleyball team has also decided to operate independently to try for Nationals, so please give them plenty of support. And for today, first period class is homeroom so we can discuss the morning assembly.” She glanced back at the board. “Or this if you’re more interested.”

“Ms. Kawakami?” one of the girls asked. “Did the school staff know about what Kamoshida was doing to the sports teams?”

“I had no idea, honestly,” she said, looking regretful in a way that made her seem honest. Chou felt certain that she was. “He seemed like a nice normal guy whenever he spoke to me. But now that his true nature has been uncovered, I can see some warning signs that I should have picked up on. I’m sorry; I wish this kind of thing didn’t happen.”

“But what about the rest of the staff, like the principal?” a boy asked. From a glance around the room, Chou could tell through Third Eye that the rest of the class believed her too.

“I can’t speak for them,” Ms. Kawakami said. There was some frustration to her aura, though. It had likely been discussed at an emergency teacher’s meeting.

“Oh, Ms. Kawakami?” one of the students with a cellphone in hand said. “I’ve got the dress code pulled up, and that’s right, there’s no rules forbidding this kind of cross-dressing.”

“Really?” she asked, going over to the student’s desk to check her phone for the rules.

“Really, not even here,” the student with the print copy said.

“So we could wear pants if we wanted?” one of the girls asked, interested in this.

After a moment, Ms. Kawakami handed the phone back and said, “Apparently. Huh. Then, what do you all think of this?” She went back to her desk at the front of the room.

“I agree that no guy would dare wear a skirt to school,” one of the girls up front said, causing a tittering among most of the girls and embarrassed chuckles out of the guys.

“But they wouldn’t be breaking any rules if they did.”

Pleased enough at starting the talk, Chou listened but didn’t add anything to the discussion. Someone must have posted about it on the school message board because it was already starting to spread by lunchtime. “Somebody must have skipped out on the assembly and wrote it then,” Ann said to the others at their lunchtime meet-up. “But nobody knows who.”

“I’d suspect the guy who grabbed the book of school regulations,” Chou said. “He looked that up much too quick while the others had an easier time with their phones.”

Shiho giggled. “They must be loving all this talk. Hey, do we want to exchange uniform styles while abiding by school rules?”

“No way are you getting me in a skirt,” Ryuji said quickly. “Though I do remember spotting that when I was looking up how far I could bend the dress code. Never thought to bring up that loophole to anybody else.”

“If we’re going to do that, we’ll need to do it soon before they patch up the rules,” Chou said. “Though I should play it safe.”

“Right, you wouldn’t want things to get messy over something little like that,” Ann agreed. “Buuut, that does sound like fun to show up in pants for a day! I bet if enough of us do it, they can’t put everybody in detention.”

Meanwhile, Shiho had her hand to her chin. “Hey, so what if we make it like a school protest? Because the teachers want us to keep a clamp on things and not make a big fuss like the media is. My homeroom teacher complained about the students who showed up in news interviews about Kamoshida, even though their faces were hidden.”

“Like, if they’re not going to protect us, then we’ll protect ourselves by avoiding things a pervert could take advantage of?” Chou asked.

Shiho nodded. “Right. There were many days when I wanted to wear a longer skirt to avoid getting grabbed or leered at, but the school regulations don’t allow for it.”

“I felt the same,” Ann said. “But a pants protest would be nice to show that we’re sick of taking such things into account.”

“I should make a post about that now, get support for the idea so we can set a date,” Shiho said, taking out her phone to access the school message board.

“If it’s for a protest, I might be able to get away with it too,” Chou said. If there was a way to post anonymously, she might make a support post for the protest mentioning the freshman girl who’d been raped too. No names or ways to identify her specifically, but that should be a part of a protest against lack of protection.

In the afternoon, she got called to the student guidance room to talk with the police. Chou didn’t want to stand out to them, so she hid her aura again to seem unimportant. There were two officers there writing up reports while interviewing students. Surprisingly, there was a student from another school there, a boy with shaggy brown hair. She noticed immediately that his aura was different than most people. Did he have an awakened Persona? It was similar to that around her friends and the sports teams now.

“So then, Chou Amamiya,” one of the officers said. “You’re being called in here because your name appeared on Kamoshida’s confession list.”

“Yes, I heard about that,” she said.

“Specifically it was about spreading slander to destroy your character,” he said. “Which is a little surprising about a transfer student. Did you have any interactions with him before coming to Shujin Academy?”

She shook her head. “No, I had no idea who he was.”

“What about after you started here?”

“I saw him in gym class,” she said. “And he talked to me once.”

“What about?”

“He invited me to a meeting in his office if I had any questions, but I can just talk with my homeroom teacher about that. I turned him down because I had somewhere else to be.”

“Do you know what sort of slander he spread about you?” the boy asked. He’d been in an attentive poise the whole time, over-eager in her opinion.

“I have suspicions, but no proof,” she said.

“Suspicions about what?” the boy asked.

Perhaps her skill at seeming unimportant wasn’t as good when they were specifically talking to her. At least with the boy; one of the officers tried to suppress a yawn about then. “Are you a policeman?” she asked the boy. “Pardon me, but it’s something I can’t talk about with just anybody.”

“Oh, no, I’m just an amateur detective helping them out,” the boy said, getting out of his seat. “But if that’s your preference, I can step out for a moment.”

“Thanks, that’d be better,” she said.

Once he was out of the room, the officer questioning her said, “Then what are your suspicions about?”

“I transfered here under special permission because I’m on probation,” Chou said, feeling like some truth would help deflect suspicions off the actual truth. “Only the school staff was supposed to know about that, and only a few at that according to what I was told. But before I even got here, news of my probation got leaked and everybody knows. It’s been clear that some of the school staff did not agree with the principal’s decision to take me in, but I wasn’t sure who leaked the info.”

“I see, that makes sense,” the officer said. Meanwhile, his partner was getting even more bored. The officer silently rebuked him with a glance, then put on a neutral face to deal with her. “There’s not much we can do about it since the leak spread so far already.”

And they didn’t care to try. “Fine, I just have to keep working hard to avoid trouble.”

“That’d be for the best.” They then excused her. The teen detective went right back in; maybe he’d try to worm the info out of them. But this was only her third week here in Shujin. They shouldn’t find her suspicious even if they knew she was on probation.

But that teen detective might be someone to keep an eye out for.

* * *

It was annoying not to be recognized. But no… he should take this rationally. His star was just starting to shine, after all. If it had been a couple months down the line, then he could get properly annoyed. As it was, Goro decided it wasn’t worth the effort to find out what the transfer student wanted to keep from him. She wasn’t a strong suspect anyhow. She barely had any connection to Kamoshida; she might not even recognize him as a former Olympian. While the coach had tried to get her ostracized, there was nothing else to connect her to Kamoshida’s change.

She also wasn’t mentioning dreams. That in itself was unusual since nearly every other Shujin student on the confession list reported having lucid dreams around the incident. According to those testimonies, the phantom thieves had invited them to help with punishing Kamoshida for his sins. They knew some of the terms; they knew about Personas since those had been awakened in them. He’d noticed that in them, while the transfer student had an aura that was completely normal. With that, he felt comfortable in writing her off as a suspect.

Unfortunately, that left almost every other student they’d interviewed today as possibly being a phantom thief. Or maybe someone outside of the school was the cause, due to the amount of inexplicable circumstances around the case. There was no clear means of how the power to the whole building had been shut off without the perpetrator of that showing up on security cameras. No one had been in the building at all in the hour before then. And from what security footage was there, it was only during the power outage that someone could have posted the cards unseen. No fingerprints anywhere, no traces of something out of the ordinary…

No traces of something supernatural either, which was frustrating. Suguru Kamoshida had a Palace at one time; Goro had given it a quick look over on discovering it, but the coach was no one special. It was just another on the list that might be useful someday. But now? No Palace at all. Not even a trace of it remained. How had they done so without killing Kamoshida? Or were the kill orders deeply embedded? Usually they didn’t last a week.

These thieves knew what they were doing. They were careful planners who weren’t afraid to go all out. Maybe, just maybe, these would be worthy rivals? Had they been lurking without doing anything? He had to figure out who they were. Things were getting interesting again.

Still, they couldn’t stop his momentum now.

* * *

Makoto went into the principal’s office, wondering what it was this time. Kobayakawa had become Shujin’s principal when she started school and sometimes, Makoto wondered how he’d gotten the position. Last time, he’d asked her to get an announcement sent out to the students. Couldn’t he have asked one of the teachers about that? Or at least someone who commonly accessed the AV room. Makoto had to track down somebody with the key there herself.

Still, he was the principal and she needed to be polite with him. “Yes sir, what is it?” she asked.

“Did you see those calling cards that were posted up before Kamoshida quit?” he asked. “The ones signed by those supposed phantom thieves.”

“Of course, it was hard to miss them.” There had been one posted on every bulletin board in school, including the classrooms, the student council office, the entire practice building, and the teacher’s lounge. And they’d done it with the power out to the whole building. It was impressive, honestly. Although, she wouldn’t be telling anybody she felt that way.

“I’d like you to question the students and figure out if any of them were these so-called phantom thieves,” he asked.

What? “Me, sir? Aren’t the police looking into that? They’d know what to do.”

“Yes, but don’t you think the other students will talk more easily to one of their peers?” the principal asked. “And those phantom thieves made a mess of the school. We need to figure out how they operate and who they are, to make sure the school stays clean and safe.”

“I’ll ask around, but I think the police would do better,” Makoto said.

“Thank you, I’m glad I can count on you.”

Even though she would go ahead and do this task, she had to wonder why he was asking her about this.

* * *

Surprisingly, they found Shiho meeting up with Yuuki outside of class. “Oh, sorry, I won’t be able to be at our math study session,” Shiho said. “I got chosen as one of the team leaders, so I have to be supervising the freshman practice today.”

“That’s fine,” Ann said, happy for her. This was a great improvement out of her friend, getting back to her positive self. “I figured you’d be busy since the team decided to continue.”

“Good luck wrangling newbies,” Chou said.

“You girls are doing a math study?” Yuuki asked.

Ann nodded. “Yeah, Chou here is good with math, so she’s helping us and Ryuji out to do better.”

“That’s good,” Yuuki said. “I can’t practice right now, but I’m currently the team manager. I have to get to work at reviewing Kamoshida’s plans and seeing if there’s anything else I need to do to keep us in the running.”

“You got it, Yuuki,” Chou said. When had she gotten familiar with him? He gave a bashful smile and waved as the two of them headed off to the gym.

At the math session in the school courtyard, Ann found it surprisingly easier to deal with all the numbers and formulas. Part of it had to be that she could pay attention to Chou easier than the math teacher. Even so, wasn’t math supposed to be hard? It wasn’t easy, but Ann could get the problems done now. Chou checked over her homework and marked the wrong ones so that she could redo them. If this kept up, she might be able to post good grades this year. At least above average.

Towards the end of their planned session, Ryuji got a text. “Aw crap, I gotta pick up some things for my mom,” he said, hastily putting his stuff away. “Sorry, I’d better get that taken care of.”

“No problem,” Chou said. “You’re doing better.”

“Maybe we should extend this out to other studies too,” Ann said. “I can coach you guys in English.”

“ _I’d like to know if my English sounds good, maybe_ ,” Chou said.

“ _It’s a little rough, but I can understand you_ ,” Ann replied. “ _I grew up speaking more English than Japanese when I was young, so that class at least is easy for me._ ”

“ _I tried to learn it from books and videos with subtitles, for a better chance at a good school_ ,” she explained, then rubbed her head. “ _It didn’t work out for me._ ”

 _“It should work for college, I’d think_.”

“What kind of weird Chinese you girls speaking?” Ryuji asked.

They both laughed at that. “It’s English, silly,” Ann said. “You’ve got a long ways to go in that subject.”

“I don’t get why they make us learn two languages,” he said, trying to hide his embarrassment. “It’s hard enough learning one.”

“English is pretty hard,” Ann said. “But keep practicing it and you’ll get it.”

Ryuji shrugged. “Well I use Japanese every day. Can’t say the same for English.”

Chou grinned mischievously. “I could give my next math lesson in English, make it a challenge for everybody.”

“Oh god no,” Ryuji said, closing up his bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye!” Ann then finished up a problem she’d done wrong, then passed her practice sheet to Chou. “How’s this?”

After a few seconds, she nodded in approval. “Good work; seems like you’ve got this now.”

“Yes!” She looked over the practice sheet herself; later on, she could copy the answers to the workbook itself. That would be neater, although the teacher would want the practice sheet too to see her methods. “Hey, can we get crepes to celebrate?”

“Sure, why not?” Chou said.

They went to Shibuya’s crepe shop, which did have their special double chocolate crepe available, with a milk chocolate whipped creme inside and a dark chocolate sauce over it. Ann bought one of those without hesitation, while Chou chose a strawberry chocolate crepe for herself. Although Shibuya was bustling as always, they sat a bench to eat and watch over the people bustling nearby.

“You know, I’m really happy about how Shiho is doing,” Ann said. “She’s been down in the dumps for much of this year, but she kept pushing herself to do well. But now that Kamoshida’s gone, she’s starting to shine like she did back in middle school. I still want to keep an eye on her because things got pretty dark not that long ago. But now she’s free.”

“It’s great for both of you,” she said.

“Right, I can stop fake flirting with someone I despise,” she said, feeling relieved at it. “I am never doing that again.”

“Good idea.”

Nodding, Ann glanced over at her. “But you know, even though it’s nice that people are giving me another chance after all those rumors, it seems like they’re not doing the same for you. I don’t hear as much gossip about you as in past weeks, but I had a few people ask why I was hanging out with a criminal like you.”

“They don’t know me because I haven’t been around like you have,” Chou said, giving a shrug. “I’m getting used to ignoring it.”

“Well you shouldn’t have to ignore something like that,” Ann said. “Especially when none of it is your fault. Although, you are pretty tough to take that kind of talk and keep cool about it.”

“I know the truth and that’s what matters,” she said, confidant and cool.

“I still think we need to correct that lie, but maybe that attitude will help convince people.” Ann thought it would be good to have that attitude, much like her Persona. “I feel like I can be confidant these days too because of the Persona that showed up in my dreams. Though, I wonder what these Persona are.”

“I don’t know about those dream Persona, but I know about them in psychology,” Chou said.

“Really? What kind of beings are they?”

She shook her head. “They’re not beings at all. A persona is a kind of mask that people use to deal with the hardships of life, and everyday social dealings too. It’s like, you know you need to do certain things to get along in life, like using honorifics and being polite. We do that even if we think it’s stuffy and boring, or unnecessary. Or maybe you have to be polite with somebody you don’t like, like with how you had to deal with Kamoshida. That’s when you use a persona, not your real personality.”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Ann said. “Sometimes when you get to know somebody, you find out that they’re different than you thought they were. I guess that means you see past their persona after they trust you?”

“Pretty much,” Chou said.

Ann considered that. She didn’t think she acted like Carmen. Not yet, anyhow. “That thief guy told us that awakening our Personas was like seeing who we could be. Though, I would like to act like my Persona does: confidant, sexy, and independent. I’ve seen her in my dreams a few times.” She smiled at recalling a bit of it. “If I could be like that, it’d be amazing. I’d feel better about doing what I like.”

“Like your childhood hero of the lady villain?” she asked, smiling back.

“Exactly! Hey, you think school would be easier if I had that attitude?”

“A lot of other students would be impressed if you did, even if they didn’t realize what you were doing,” Chou said. “Who knows? Give it a shot.”

“Maybe I will. It’d certainly help with my modeling, if I keep doing that.”

“You would blow everyone’s mind being a model like that,” she said.

“Though maybe not too sexy,” she said. Didn’t want to attract perverts like Kamoshida, after all.

But it would be amazing. How could she get more comfortable acting like that? Maybe with her modeling.


	16. Nine of Wands

4/27

Somehow, Wednesdays were now running practice with Chou. Ryuji didn’t mind that; it was good to get back into running. And she listened to his advice attentively, soaking it in quickly. Although, translating that knowledge to physical activity didn’t seem as easy for her as it was for him. He had to coach her on her stride during running. “You don’t want to waste energy, especially over a long run. So we find efficient ways to move. Sometimes it just shaves a few seconds off an average time, but that can make a difference.”

“Makes sense,” Chou said, slowing a moment to trying fixing her stride. “Kind of hard to run and think about running at the same time.”

“Yeah, but you’ll get the hang of it with practice,” he said. “At least enough to stop thinking about it.”

“Sure.” She seemed to be focused enough not to tease him this time.

Once they passed their mile route (and his leg didn’t act up this time, thankfully), they rested a short bit in the courtyard. “Crud, my stamina is not what it used to be,” Ryuji complained after he caught his breath. “Running a mile used to be nothing. Last year, I said that I was gonna run a marathon before I graduated.”

“It’ll just take a little longer to get to that level,” Chou said.

“Guess so,” Ryuji said. “Maybe I’ll start up jogging to school from the station again. It’s not far, but it’s a bit of practice and the bits add up.”

She nodded, but then someone called over, “Hey! Sakamoto!”

It was two of his old teammates from the track team, both in gym uniforms as well. “Oh, hey Nakaoka, Takeishi.”

“What’re you doing here?” Nakaoka asked, “Training in your secret spot again? Well it’s our spot now.”

“Uh, it’s just the school courtyard,” Ryuji said. Saying it was a secret spot sounded cool, although it seemed lame in front of a girl.

But they harassed the two of them for a couple minutes, trying to guilt-trip him with all the stuff they had to do to keep running. They even brought up how he was hanging out with Chou now. “It fits, learning from someone who killed somebody,” Nakaoka said. “Then you’d be an actual criminal too.”

Ryuji was about to lose his temper over that. Thankfully, Chou spoke up at last, calmly asking, “You got any proof?”

“Huh?” He looked like he wanted to step away from her, but tried to show courage by not.

And she stepped up to him. “You got any proof I killed anyone? I’d like to hear it.” She didn’t sound angry about it. Instead, she looked to him curiously. That reminded Ryuji to keep his own temper in check. It wasn’t worth lashing out against these guys.

“Uh, no but everyone knows you did,” Takeishi said, maybe since he wasn’t face to face with her. “It was online.”

“So you’ll believe random stuff you saw online?” she asked, shaking her head in disappointment as she stepped back. “To think these would be the students I’d find in a prep school. At least Ryuji is doing his best on his studies and critical thinking.”

“Hey, I get better grades than him,” Nakaoka said. “Whatever, you guys better stop encroaching on our grounds.”

“The school grounds, where we belong?” Ryuji asked. “No need to be hostile; all that stuff is in the past. I’m focusing on what I can do now. Come on, Chou, let’s run somewhere else.”

“Sure thing,” she said. As they were leaving the courtyard, she added, “An awful shame to hold a grudge like that.”

“I can understand, so I won’t be hard on them,” Ryuji said. “They’re doing their best. Actually, I’m amazed you kept cool back there when they accused you of being a killer.”

She shrugged like it didn’t matter; that was cool in a girl, in anybody really. “People like them aren’t worth getting in trouble over. If they weren’t so bitter and combative about it, I’d want to help them keep doing their thing.”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s like, Kamoshida is gone now, right? And he fessed up to all of his crimes, including ruining the track team out of jealousy. So leave the blame on him.”

“Agreed,” Chou said. “Then, what now?”

He thought about it. “Guess we should figure out some other place to practice. Maybe we could still run around this neighborhood, it’s usually not crazy with people like Shibuya.” They’d run a mile today, so getting something to eat sounded good. That reminded him… “Oh yeah, I’ve heard they’ve got this special deal at Big Bang Burger this month if you come after five. Real cheap too, but it’s a challenge. I’ve been wanting to try it out.”

“I shouldn’t be out too late,” she said. “But I think it’ll be fine.”

Ryuji laughed, eager to see the look on her face when she realized what it was. “Alright, we’ll give it a go then! We still have some time, so how about some sprints in front of the school? That requires a different style to go as fast as you can in a short space.”

She agreed to it, so they took turns sprinting between the school gate and the vending machine spot or timing the other doing so. It was good for working up an appetite before they had to go back to change out of their gym clothes and head on over to Shibuya. “You’re a pretty good instructor,” she said as they waited in the train station. “I could get used to practicing like this.”

“Eh, I’m not that good of one,” he said, although he felt proud at the compliment.

“You’re pretty much a nerd when it comes to being a jock,” she teased him. “With all the stuff you’ve already taught me, you could be a personal trainer.”

“Eh, you think so?” he asked, surprised at the suggestion. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, not something I thought of. Wonder what I’d have to study to do that? Maybe not math.”

“Maybe yes math because of the biology of fitness,” Chou said. “That and keeping track of schedules, food calories, probably other things, all with math.”

“Well hopefully not complicated math,” he said.

Over in Shibuya, the Big Bang Burger was already busy with dinner rush. But there were still enough tables open for them to take. “Welcome, may I take your order?” the cashier said, giving a truncated version of their usual greeting. “And remember, for this month only, in the evening hours we are holding our special Trial By Burger Challenge for only 500 yen. If you finish your big burger trial in thirty minutes, you earn a spot on our crew board and a fabulous prize.”

“Huh, big burger trial?” Chou asked, looking interested.

“I’m trying it out,” Ryuji said to the cashier, then glanced at Chou. “What about you?”

“I’ll try it,” she said.

Once their bill was paid, the cashier gave them both number signs. “Okay then, please take a seat and we’ll get your challenge brought out for you.”

“Heh, I wasn’t sure if you’d take the trial too,” Ryuji said as they found a table to share.

“I always wanted to do one of these,” Chou said, setting her schoolbag in the seat beside her. “Plus, five hundred yen for a large burger? Why would I say no to that?”

He laughed; she was quite an interesting girl. “Hell yeah, that’s what I’m thinking! It ain’t the healthiest thing, but what the hell? That’s not bad every now and then, and their food is usually good.”

Not long after, one of the staff came by with two massive burgers for them; they were larger than his face! “Here you go,” she said, setting down a small timer. “Since you’re both first-timers, here is your first challenge: the great Comet Burger that streaks in from the sky and onto your plate, or something like that. If you pass this test, you’ll win a position on the ship’s crew board right over there. And you have thirty minutes, starting now. Good luck!”

“Wow, these things are massive!” Ryuji said, not expecting them to be this big. Other customers near them looked over in surprise too.

“Less talk, more eat,” Chou told him, taking her Comet Burger with both hands to start digging in.

“Right, gotta do this now.”

How many pounds of meat were on this thing? For that matter, how much of the lettuce, onions, and tomatoes? It felt like there was a whole head of lettuce here, with little rings of tomatoes and onions peeking out as surprises all over. The buns were quite big too, although that didn’t stop a mess of bits from piling up on the trays. While other customers watched on in amusement or amazement, Ryuji soon tuned out their gazes much like spectators at track meets. Except here, all that mattered was him against the burger.

At some point, he noticed that Chou’s cat had popped her head out of the school bag to meow some encouragement. It was put out of mind until he had polished off his burger and made sure there were no bits left on his tray. “Phew, I pulled it off.”

“Good job,” Chou said, smiling smugly because she had finished first. She even had her face wiped off with a towelette already; she passed a packet over to him.

He took it. “Hey, how’d you get done before me?”

“A bit of luck, perhaps,” she said.

“And how’s your cat in here without other people complaining?” Ryuji asked, taking out the towelette to clean up his face and fingers.

“Meow,” the cat replied. She even had her front paws out on the edge of the bag now.

“The cat is a mystery even to me,” Chou said, right before the buzzer went off.

When the staff member came over second later, Morgana was back hidden in the bag. “Congratulations to both of you,” she said. “That was an amazing feat, so here you go: a crewman badge! Show this at any participating Big Bang Burger to take the next challenge of space age dining that awaits you. If you work hard, you can even earn the coveted Captain’s Badge. And let me get your names to put them up on the board.”

After getting their names written up on the markerboard, Chou twirled the badge around her fingers. “Fabulous prize, huh? Seems cheap to me, but we surpassed this challenge.”

“Yeah, that victory is worthwhile,” Ryuji said, in a good mood. “But man, I think I’m going to be stuffed until dinner tomorrow.”

“No kidding,” she said. “But this challenge is only this month, huh?”

“It’s being given an extension past that, maybe a permanent place on their menu,” he explained. “I already saw news about it on their company website. You know, I already heard that the final burger in this challenge is called the Cosmic Tower. I thought something called a Tower would be that size, but that’s our starter Comet Burger? Sheesh, how big is the Cosmic Tower gonna be?”

“Want to find out for ourselves?” Chou said with a smirk.

“Of course!” he said, grinning back. “And beat that challenge, however big it is! Of course, I also want to get a six minute mile again. Contradictory sets of goals, huh?”

“Nah, they’re both challenges,” she said. “Mind if I try with you?”

“Sure, it’ll be great having a challenge buddy again.” A little weird that his rival friend was going to be a girl now, but whatever. If he could be a little more like her, then Ryuji felt like he could amaze everyone again.

He didn’t think he could beat her in math. But maybe if he improved there, it could seriously impress her too.

* * *

“What are you doing coming in at this hour?” Sojiro asked. Continuing to code the game she was working on, Futaba glanced over to the monitor with Leblanc's security feed. It was Chou and… it was close to six-thirty? That wasn’t too late, not that time really meant anything.

“I became an astronaut,” she said, causing Futaba to raise an eyebrow. Chou put something on the counter: a bronze medal shaped like the Big Bang Burger mascot. “And ran around a lot after school to train for a six minute mile, so we were pretty hungry.”

“Huh, you took that Big Bang Burger Challenge?” Sojiro asked. “I’ve been hearing about it on commercials.”

Chou nodded. “And beat the first stage.”

“That is a seriously massive burger,” Futaba said, having glanced over an ad article out of curiosity. “Like three days worth of calories in the Comet Burger alone.”

“Now why would you go doing a thing like that?” Sojiro asked, trying to scold her. But he was amused and thus utterly failed at scolding. The customer who was in for some curry for dinner even chuckled at it. “That kind of overeating is unhealthy.”

“Because the challenge was there, that’s why,” Chou said.

Giving a sigh, Sojiro said, “As long as you don’t make a habit out of it.”

“But I will become a Captain of Space Burgers,” Chou said, finally getting a chuckle out of him. “Want me to wash some dishes? I’ve got my homework for tomorrow done already.”

“Sure, since you’re offering,” he said.

“Not a programmer, but still pretty cool,” Futaba said to herself. Then she sighed. “I wonder if she’d really speak to me. She might make fun of me. I don’t know.”

It would be nice to have a second real life friend…

_You should have never been born._

“R-r-right, there is that too,” she muttered, her hands quivering on the keyboard. Focus on the code… the code could block out things.

But she kept feeling like someone was standing just behind her, watching in spite.

* * *

4/28

On her walk over to school, Chou heard talk about an unofficial volleyball rally tomorrow, despite it being a day off school. The volleyball team was inviting people to come attend their practice that day, with a promise of snacks and drinks provided. There was also a hint that something else would be announced that day by the team. Since it wasn’t like the last rally, those talking about going seemed genuinely interested or curious about it.

Shiho was excited during lunch. “We’ve gotten really lucky about it,” she said with a cute smile. “When the idea first came up, I thought we’d be lucky to have plenty of snacks available. But our parents have changed on realizing what actually went on. The teachers too; Ms. Kawakami was a big help even though she seems like a grouch most days, and the school store was happy to contribute. It’s amazing, actually, to have so much support now. Mrs. Chouno even brought up the idea of hiring an extra student counselor who was experienced in these kinds of cases.” She rubbed at her eyes, watery despite the smile.

“Aw, don’t cry, this is great,” Ann said, giving her a small hug.

“No, I’m happy about it, but it’s so much different than before.” She grabbed a tissue to blow her nose. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get emotional all of a sudden.”

“It’s alright,” Ryuji said, patting her knee since he was next to her too. “It’s great that things are going your way.”

“Right, everybody gets to see how you guys shine now,” Chou said, emphasized by a meow from Morgana that was echoing what others said.

“I hope so,” Shiho said. “And you guys better come tomorrow! Great things are going to happen and you need to know what’s what.”

Since she had little else planned for the day, Chou worked at the flower shop for a couple of hours. She would have worked more, but there weren’t many customers and the owner just had her help catch up on things before letting her leave. That gave her time to go back to Yongen-Jaya to pick up some of Dr. Takemi’s medicines. As she took care of those errands, she had the Metaverse app search for the Treasure of Shido’s Palace from Shibuya, Yongen-Jaya, and Ayoame-Itchome. That pointed her to her next destination: Kasumigaseki.

Specifically the Diet Building. Chou felt on guard the whole time she was there, even though she’d changed to jeans, a t-shirt, and an old jacket to be less noticeable. But the people around here were dressed in business suits, police gear, and other government uniforms. She did what she could to keep her aura uninteresting, but it was difficult to shake the feeling of being out of place here. It was worse than what she felt at school.

There was also a hidden negativity that blanketed the area. When Morgana wanted to give her thoughts, she patted Chou’s shoulder instead of popping her front half up to stand on her shoulder. “There’s so much ambition here, and all kinds of other dominating feelings.”

“It is the seat of power for the whole country,” Chou said quietly.

“Yeah,” Morgana said, mostly hidden in her bag. “I don’t think I visited this area, but I can sense multiple Palaces around. There might even be one that dominates all the others. Or most of them? This is confusing; so many signals.”

At that point, the Metaverse app chimed in. “The layer of Masayoshi Shido’s Palace has been located. Other Palaces are in the vicinity, but the target Palace is stable and will not allow gaps to other layers. Begin navigation when ready.”

“Ready to head in?” Chou asked.

“We need to be very careful here,” Morgana said. “But yes, I’m ready.”

Chou hit the Navigate button for Shido’s Palace. She felt dizzy again, but tried to keep her eyes open while the air rippled around her. Hopping out of the bag before transforming, Ace landed by her as they were suddenly surrounded by a chanting crowd. Joker dropped down and slipped into the shadows of a road barrier before realizing that the crowd was all masked cognitions. Her outfit as Joker stood out just as much as her normal outfit in the real world. But she could more reliably hide here.

“Geez, it’s like a civil war out here,” Ace said to her.

She had a point; there were things that looked like cannons around, but it felt like they were non-lethal in a more bang than bullet way. There were also protest signs being held aloft: ‘Keep the old ways!’ ‘Share power!’ ‘Due process is due process.’ ‘Don’t fix what ain’t broke!’ ‘You are not the Chosen One, but one of the Chosen Many!’ In front of the protesters, the Diet Building stood unchanged. There was a large dog Shadow pacing in front of the doors, with white fur matching that of the grand building it guarded.

“Maybe it’s his interpretation of the current political situation within the Diet?” Joker suggested. “That would be heavily on his mind.”

“That’s probably it,” Ace said, bringing out a bottle of something she called Stealthanol. The scent of it was supposed to make them seem less dangerous to Shadows, less worthy of their attention. “Here, so we don’t call attention when we start moving. And you had some jerky among your snacks this time, right? We could use it on the dog.”

“Sure, we need to distract him to get in,” Joker said, spraying a bit of the Stealthanol on her outfit. Then they slipped through the shadows of the crowd to get to the doors.

At one point, they had to get to the edges because of a line of police officers with riot shields preventing the other cognitions from getting in. The police officers all had helmets with shaded visors, making them seem identical. At the edges, there was an odd wall blocking sight of the streets past the Diet Building. Making it odder, there weren’t as many buildings past the wall as there should be. They got to the wall and Joker took a moment to peer over it.

The ocean surrounded them, several floors below where they were standing. What buildings were out there were skyscrapers that could stand above the waters covering the rest of the city. They were in bad shape, though, with broken windows and visible cracks along the walls. Even more ominous, the ocean waters were littered with debris from a ruined city. A ship’s horn sounded as she looked over the eerie landscape, with water clear to the horizons.

Ace hopped up to peek over the wall herself. “Holy smokes, we’re on a ship!” she cried.

“This is unreal,” Joker said, bringing out her phone. “How far out does this Palace extend?”

“Calculating,” the app said. After a moment, it gave her a map that showed this layer as existing in the Metaverse beyond the borders of Tokyo. She showed it to Ace.

“Uh, we could be in trouble,” Ace said, tilting her ears down. “This Shido guy has a lot of influence in the normal world, right? This is his unconscious influence over the Metaverse and it’s way more than a normal Palace owner would have. He could make that ocean appear on his layer anywhere in the city! Or this ship could be anywhere in that range. But if the app says this layer is stable with no gaps, we won’t be slipping into it on accident like you did with Kamoshida.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Joker said, not wanting to lose on account of drowning by slipping into this layer at the wrong place.

Ace glanced over at the entrance. “An influence that strong is going to attract strong Shadows. We had some nasty encounters in Kamoshida’s Palace and these ones are going to be far more nasty, like that dog. I don’t know if we should be here yet.”

Frowning, Joker didn’t like the idea of going home just yet. Was there anything here that might have some use? Arsene felt like there was some information to be had here. And if this was the Diet building… and a cruise ship… she tugged at Ace. “I have an idea. Won’t take long, but we’ll need to get just inside the doors. If it’s as I think it is, we could obtain something valuable here.”

“Whatcha got in mind?” Ace asked, then listened. She soon agreed to the idea, so they kept sneaking their way over to the doors.

The dog guard on duty paused to sniff the air as they got to one of the pillars near it. Its serpentine tail waved in a curve regularly, indicating its alertness. After a moment, it took a step, paused again, and sniffed. Did it notice the Stealthanol and think it was suspicious for trying to make him not suspicious? Joker took out the jerky bag as quietly as she could, opened it, and took out a few strips to toss over the dog’s head. It quickly noticed, glancing back their way for a moment. But the scent of the jerky was too tempting. The white dog went over to sniff the jerky some more. As it ate the strips up, they got to one of the doors and slipped through.

Inside, the building was busy with people and their discussions. Everyone here was more distinct than those outside, wearing masks of varying colors and shapes. And everything was grand: massive curving staircases, lush red carpets on the floor, golden decor like vases and statues, political banners of many allegiances everywhere. Yet all the cognitions were tense, worried about the crowd of protesters outside. They seemed to be preparing for a battle, including having their own riot cannons ready to roll out.

There was a desk in the entrance area. The women at work there wore business attire as might be expected. However, their outfits all had low necklines along with other details meant to be sexy more than everyday working attire. Joker pretended she had a right to be there and strode up to the desk. “Excuse me,” she said to one of the clerks.

The masked woman seemed briefly surprised at her being there, but quickly calmed down and took her for normal. “Oh, hello. Is your name in the guest book for Lord Shido’s supporters?” She gestured to a black notebook that had gold detailing that fit the ornateness of this lobby.

Bingo. “Why else would I be here?” she asked to deflect the question. Meanwhile, she put her hand on the edge of the desk where the guest book was and tapped below the edge to indicate to Ace where it was.

“Of course,” the woman said. “We’re rallying up to expel the mutineers from taking over the ship. All civilian guests are asked to remain calm and patient while we deal with these obstacles.”

Joker leaned on the counter and kept her eyes on the woman, treating her as though she was more than just a figment of someone else’s imagination. “I understand, but is there anything we can do to help?”

Meanwhile, Ace jumped to grab a decorative bar, getting in position. She turned one ear to the woman and another to the crowd as the clerk answered, “Of course, we should all help out our glorious benefactor. Continue as you are doing. If you wish to be more active, however, you may contact one of the VIP guests who are organizing the campaign against the mutineers. But trust in our Lord Shido. He has been chosen by God to protect us and bring us great prosperity. And never forget that it is by Shido’s grace that you may partake in the coming prosperity.”

And the guest book was off the counter, in Ace’s paws. Joker nodded and stopped leaning on the counter. “Of course. Thank you, I’ll ask around about what I can do to help bring about prosperity.” She gave a small bow, then headed back out towards the door.

Once they were back in the shadows again, Ace handed her the guest book. “We’ll be able to bring this out. And this records his supporters, eh?”

“So she said,” Joker said with a nod. “We can’t work against him directly with the Metaverse right now. But indirectly, we could do some good damage. Let’s hope we can get past that dog again.”

“Allow me,” Ace said, going to one of the side doors and putting her ear to it. After a moment, she opened the door slightly, listened longer, then nodded before opening the door further.

Joker followed her out and closed the door quietly behind them. The dog guard was patrolling on the opposite side of the entrance, sniffing along the ground closely in case there was more jerky. Until they got back into the crowd, they focused more on speed than being perfectly stealthy. Getting past the cognitions wasn’t hard and she sent them back to the real world.

They left Kasumigaseki quickly, returning to Leblanc with the guest book in Chou’s bag. On coming in, she noted Sojiro’s arm moving in a way to toss something at her. She caught it on reflex, finding that she now had a key. Sojiro nodded. “Here, I made a copy of the key to this place. I can’t be sticking around very late if you’re out somewhere at night.”

“I haven’t come back that late,” Chou said.

“It’ll be easier on both of us,” he said. “But don’t be staying out too late. If you’re going to be out in the evening, though, I need to show you a few things to check on for me.”

She agreed and listened as he asked her to make sure the sign showed ‘Closed’, the gas in the kitchen was off, the lights except one by the bathroom were off, and no papers or magazines were left out of place. She also agreed to take on some cleaning duties if she noticed them needing doing. While it was more chores to do, taking them let her go out around evening. That opened new opportunities, including raiding the Metaverse late instead of in the afternoon.

There was still some time before she had to help Sojiro with close up, so she headed upstairs to review the guest book with Morgana. It had basic information and signatures from everyone considered a guest on the ship in Shido’s cognition. Fortunately, it was well organized with the list separated by the type of support given: those who gave him funding, those who gave him votes in the Diet, those who influenced the media, those who directed the police. Every entry included a name, an occupation, and an address of some kind.

Watching her review the list, Morgana said, “This guy has his fingers in everything, looks like. Look, there’s even contacts within the criminal underworld!”

“Not all of them have Palaces, but a fair number of them do,” Chou said, adding a mark by the name ‘Junya Kaneshiro’. “We should be able to find somebody with a Palace similar to Kamoshida’s, or a step stronger than that so we can grow stronger too.”

“And that will lead us to your ultimate goal,” Morgana said. “Nice thinking in going right in the door just to snag this book! Makes our trip today worth it.”

“This means we can now plan our raids rather than fumble around blindly,” Chou said, feeling accomplished.

She went down to help Sojiro with closing up the cafe when the time was right, then went across the street to go into the bathhouse. Luckily, the friendly old lady was there again too. She had more advice today, some tips to improve the manageability of her hair without resorting to heavy or damaging hairsprays. The old lady thought that a messy set of curls was chic and something to set a girl apart, but could be improved with reducing fly-aways and tangles. As she needed to pick up some new shampoo and conditioner, Chou appreciated the opinion of someone with similar hair of what products might be better for her.

That night, she had a dream of the Velvet Room. Caroline started by saying, “You’ve gotten yourself in some serious trouble, Inmate! Our master has called upon you to explain yourself.”

“Is that so?” Chou asked, coming up to the bars.

Igor wasn’t lounging lazily in his seat this time. He had his arms on the table and looked straight at her. “You’ve done well to overcome the Castle of Lust. But what were you doing in the Palace of Masayoshi Shido?”

“Scouting out the place,” she replied. “Couldn’t really do anything there, but we had to see for ourselves.”

“It is not the right time for you to be in that place,” Igor said. “Then what led you in there?”

“Figuring out the guy’s name,” she said.

“How did you do that? He erased his traces.”

“I’ve got a pretty good memory, what’s it to you?” she retorted.

Caroline hit the bars with her baton. “Hey! Be respectful!”

“You need to stay away from there,” Igor rebuked. “It is not yet on the path of your rehabilitation.”

“So what?” Chou said, earning a death glare from Caroline. Justine looked worried. “What use is a path to a Trickster?”

He narrowed his eyes a moment; she responded with an unflinching gaze. Tapping his fingers on the table, Igor answered, “You should have been made aware that straying off the path in the unconscious realms leads into the unknown, with unknown dangers and troubles.”

“It may have bolstered your guts to go that way, but that’s still reckless,” Justine said.

“I wasn’t given a road map of your game,” Chou said. “The whole game is an unknown to me. You told me to seek my revenge, and I did. So just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. That’s what you were doing already, right?”

The staring match continued a bit longer, then Igor chuckled. “Very well. You’ll fall back on the path as that is the most logical way forward. Also, your connection to me was broken suddenly. Would you like to restore it? I can grant you greater powers as your journey continues.”

“No thanks,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked, putting his head in his hand and starting to relax again.

“It must’ve changed for a reason,” Chou said. “Unless you think I absolutely need one of your powers.”

“It would make things easier on you,” he said. “But it’s not absolutely necessary. Well then, let’s see how you do.”

If there was some way to figure out what this planned path was, Chou felt like it could be fun to go completely contrary to it.


	17. Volleyball Rally

4/29

It was Showa Day and the gymnasium was packed with students cheering as the boys team played the girls team in a friendly volleyball match. The players cracked jokes, shouted compliments and taunts, and laughed freely. At the sides, the cheers were for various players and entertaining moves. The team was clearly united in their efforts now; anybody could see it. It was inspiring the rest of the school to band together too.

Chou bought a bag of buttery popcorn to watch from the edge of the seats. Most students didn’t want to be near her, so this let Ann and Ryuji be nearby. Ann cheered loudly whenever Shiho did something impressive. “Isn’t she amazing? She’s so beautiful out on the court.”

“Yeah, she is,” Chou said.

“What, you girls crushing on Shiho?” Ryuji teased them.

“That’s not it!” Ann said, her cheeks turning pink.

“Are you perving at the thought of two girls kissing?” Chou asked, acting dead serious.

“Wha, no, that’s not it!” Ryuji said, waving his hands to emphasize that he wasn’t.

“Looks like we’re both bad at guessing,” Chou said as she gave a shrug.

Ann laughed, a little loudly to make up for getting embarrassed. “I can appreciate beautiful people without being in love.” Then a round of cheers drowned out their conversation as the girls’ team won a round against the boys.

Once the cheers lowered, Shiho took a megaphone from Yuuki. “Thank you, everyone! Now, we have an important announcement before our last match of the day. We have decided to hold a day of protest on May 2nd, to express our disgust at how various people were aware of the abuses and harassment going on with Kamoshida, but refused to do anything about it. Many people told us that we were lucky to have a famous coach and we should endure any problems for the sake of our futures.

“But Kamoshida saw us as slaves to his glory, pawns that he could do anything he wanted with. Many of us have had bouts of depression due to his treatment of us; many of us have also ended up in a hospital for the same, some with serious conditions. If you want to show us your support and express disgust at this injustice as well, we are doing so by having the girls wear uniform-compliant pants and the boys wear white armbands. Don’t worry, as has been rumored lately, there are no rules in the school code specifying that you must wear gender-associated clothing as long as you are in uniform. We now have the white armbands and a surplus supply of the school pants available alongside the snacks out in the hall. Please go pick something up to help make our school a better and safer place.”

That led to a long line at the clothing sales desk once the last match of the rally was over. Chou went ahead and waited in line to pick up some pants for herself, although she got separated from the other two. That didn’t matter as much when a girl spoke up behind her. “Excuse me, are you Chou Amamiya?”

She glanced back, seeing a girl with short straight hair and a third-year pin. “Yes, and you are?”

“I’m Makoto Nijima, the student council president,” she said. “Would you mind talking with me once we’re out of this line? There’s some questions I have for you.”

“Sure, I don’t have plans after this,” Chou said. “You joining this protest too?”

She nodded, a serious expression on her face. “Yes. I was shocked at hearing what was going on in the school right under my nose; I had no idea a teacher I knew could treat his students so cruelly. This also seems like a sensible method of protest, so I have no problem with it.”

“That’s good.”

Once they got their uniform pants, Makoto brought her over to one of the club rooms. There, she explained, “I’m doing my own investigation into the incidents of the past few weeks. And despite only having been here for a few weeks, your name was listed among those on Kamoshida’s confession sheet. Do you know why that is?”

“Not for certain, but I think he had a hand in how my probation status was leaked,” Chou told her.

Her eyes widened in being startled, but she didn’t seem afraid. “Huh, you’re on probation?”

She felt a nudge from someone, a mental nudge. Trusting in that feeling, she nodded. “Yes, and most everyone in school knows from rumors they’ve heard. You didn’t?”

Shaking her head, Makoto said, “No, I didn’t. I heard we were getting a transfer student this month, but nothing in particular about you. I am a senior; that and student council responsibilities keep me busy. If you don’t mind saying, what are you on probation for? I won’t say anything.”

Chou saw where this could go. Even if Makoto was busy, she was the student council president. She might hold some sway to alleviate the rumors. “I was accused of assault,” she explained. “When in reality it was because I said no to a drunk man; he tripped over his own feet and cut his face. The whole thing went by so fast that I wasn’t allowed to defend myself in court.”

“That’s terrible,” Makoto said, genuine concern in her expression. “But I suppose if the rumors are that you’re violent, that’d explain why several students I asked said you seemed suspicious.”

“People are repeating lies like I’ve done drugs and killed a bunch of people,” Chou said. “But they’re too scared to talk to me and find out the truth, like you’re doing.”

“It is important to get to the truth of matters,” she said, relaxing her poise a little. “Then how do you know Kamoshida?”

“Barely.” She explained again how they’d spoken once and it didn’t seem like anything troublesome. “I do know a couple of people on the volleyball team, and a member of the former track team. They told me to avoid him, but I didn’t get a lot of why until that suicide attempt. While I heard about what he was doing, it wasn’t any of my business aside from supporting my new friends.”

“I see.” She put her hand to her chin. “I suppose it makes little sense for you to be involved this soon, since you’re still settling into school when other students are avoiding you. I see what I can do about that, but I can’t promise much. There is one more thing of this investigation I’d like to ask: what do you think of the Phantom Thieves of Dreams?”

“Honestly, I think they’re cool,” Chou said. “From what I’ve heard now, Kamoshida had ruled over his victims lives with all the mental and physical abuse he tormented them with, yet nobody would dare speak out against him. I don’t know how they did it, but they got him to turn himself in out of guilt. That’s pretty amazing.”

She looked thoughtful at that. “Hmmm… I suppose that’s a reasonable point of view. They’ve certainly changed the school with their actions. It really isn’t clear how they did it, any part of their work. Like with shutting off the school’s electricity so they could put up those calling cards all over school. It’s an outrageous act, yet ambitious.”

“Could it be someone with connections to a power company?” Chou asked.

“Perhaps,” Makoto said. “Although I can’t know the actual evidence myself. There isn’t enough public information to make a strong theory. They may have changed him through blackmail. Then again, I know he was a proud man and it can’t have been any ordinary blackmail to get him to act that humiliated out of the blue. While motives would be strong for a Shujin student, the methods suggest it may be someone more knowledgeable than a normal high school student.”

“You’re really into this,” Chou said, smiling at her.

“Oh!” She didn’t seem embarrassed, but still said, “Pardon me, it’s just something I’ve been thinking over the past few days. I don’t envy any of the official detectives who have to work out this mystery. That should be it; thank you for answering my questions.”

“No problem,” she said. “I think it’s cool that you’re taking it seriously and trying to work it out. Hey, you want to hang out for a bit, Makoto? If you don’t have any plans.”

That surprised Makoto in a different way. “Huh? Hang out? With me?”

“Yeah, why not?” she asked.

“Sorry, it’s just a surprise,” Makoto said, bowing her head briefly. “Um, usually I focus on my studies. I haven’t really hung out with other students.”

“Then to do something different?” Chou asked. “But if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

“It’ll be fine,” she said. “Do you think we could go by an arcade? I’ve been curious about something.”

“Sure, I’ve seen one in Shibuya,” she said. As they headed over, Makoto still seemed awkward, keeping a tight grip on her bag and watching where she walked. “What subjects do you like to study?” Chou asked, hoping to break some ice with her.

“I haven’t thought about that much,” Makoto said. “Probably science; it’s logical and gives you a method to solve problems.”

“That is a good thing about science,” Chou said. “It’s one of my favored classes; I’ve been studying psychology on my own too.”

“Really?” She look curiously to her.

Chou nodded. “I’ve always liked figuring out what makes people tick.” Fairly sure it would interest her, she added, “It’s like in mystery stories. Figuring out why people do things is as interesting as figuring out how they do them.”

“Yes, I love a good mystery that makes you question what’s really going on,” Makoto said with enthusiasm, feeling more comfortable now. “Psychology, huh? That could be important to study. But I don’t believe we have a class that focuses on that subject.”

“That’s a pity,” she said. “I find math and language easy, so science-type classes often make me think. History too, especially when the teacher’s enthusiast about the subject.”

Makoto smiled. “That’s always a plus in a teacher. Math is pretty easy, but language too? I have to think more through language; it’s easy to solve logical problems. But language is an art too and it’s sometimes hard to figure out how to word things.”

“Don’t you have to give speeches and stuff as a student council president?” Chou asked.

“Yes, and it does make me nervous. I often spend several hours figuring out how a speech should be worded, then practicing it out in front of a mirror. But public speaking skills are a requirement in many fields. I do my best with them.”

“That’s true,” Chou said. “The problem I have with giving speeches is that I feel awkward being the only one speaking at length for very long.”

“It does take practice,” Makoto said. “You should be asked to give short speeches as a part of classes this year. It increases as a senior.”

They ended up talking about speeches through their trip over to Shibuya. At the arcade on Central Street, Makoto turned shy again. She looked around at all the different machines and the people playing them. They seemed to be mostly arcade games with a few crane-type games in one corner. Being a day off, there were many students around, even those from Shujin. Chou asked her to pick something while she exchanged some money for play coins.

“What about this one over here?” Makoto said. “It seems to have some kind of gun-shaped accessory on it.”

“It’d be a shooter with that kind of specialized controller,” Chou said, going over to the open machines for ‘Gun About: The Super Real’ before other players got to them.

“Oh, so you’re on some mission involving guns?” Makoto accepted the coins, then picked up on of the controllers. “Is this truly realistic? Wouldn’t they get in trouble for making a game with realistic gunplay?”

“There’s always been people complaining about games being too violent,” she said, putting her coins in. It gave her several options, including the chance to log in a specific game account. “Hey, want to try co-op since this the first time for both of us?”

“Uh, sure, that’s probably better.” Since their machines were next to each other, they were able to link up their games. The game gave them a group of standard builds to choose from, hinting that they could personalize their stats and avatar if they signed up for a free game account. Chou chose a build that favored movement speed and stealth, since those types tended to appeal to her in games.

The game put them into a forest and told them to go hunt down some zombies. The movement controls were on the handle of the gun by the trigger, in the form of a roller ball. As such, it took some coordination to move and shoot. There were some extra buttons by the movement ball, likely for some special moves. Chou focused first on coordinating her movement and shooting.

Before she realized it, Morgana had gotten out of her bag and onto the side of the arcade machine. “So this is a video game?”

“Ah, I got one!” Makoto said. “Wait, no, how did he get back up? I shot him.”

“Zombies can be resilient,” Chou said.

“I see, we’ll have to figure out how to down them for good,” she said. “Whoa! I did a back flip!”

“How’d you do it?” Chou asked, immediately curious about it.

“I don’t know! My hand slipped a moment so maybe these buttons?” She tried again.

Watching her screen, Chou spotted what had to be Makoto’s avatar doing a back flip. She used it to shoot one of the zombies before it attacked her. “Awesome. Maybe it’s some dodge strategy?”

“Dodge by flipping around?” Makoto asked. “You mean, like in those wire-fu movies where they do ridiculous moves?”

“Probably.”

“That’s not realistic.”

“But it is super.”

Makoto actually chuckled at that. “I suppose. Oh, there he goes! So you shoot them once you down them, maybe?”

“Seems so. I think my gun doesn’t have as much power as yours.” She shot another zombie in the legs to knock him down.

And Makoto finished it off. “We seem to have chosen different types. Can you back flip?”

“Let me see.” She pressed one of the buttons, getting her avatar to jump up a trunk and onto a tree branch. “This is either jumping or climbing; I’ll have to play with it.”

“There’s one!” Morgana said, swatting at a zombie leaping in from the side of the screen.

“Behind you,” Chou warned, shooting down the zombie.

“Ah, got it!”

Before they realized it, they’d cleared five maps of the game by working together. The game offered them a bonus upgrade if they signed up for a game account. “Hey, this game could be useful for practicing your gunplay,” Morgana said. Although she was out in the open, it seemed like no one else was noticing her.

“You know, I think I’ll get an account for this game,” Chou said, bringing out her phone to download the app from the machine.

“It is pretty fun,” Makoto said, then put a hand to her cheek. “I, I mean, I can see why people get hooked on these games.”

“There’s no shame in having fun with games on occasion,” she said.

“I suppose so,” Makoto said. “Would having an account open up more of the game for us?”

“I’d imagine so. I just hope it’s not a pay to win type of game, where they’ll give you bigger challenges but make you buy stuff to defeat those challenges.”

“That does sound shady. I don’t know if this is proper of me, but I’d like to see more of this game.” She looked over the controller in thought.

“Why wouldn’t it be proper?” The app had downloaded and was now asking for an account name. Glancing at Morgana, Chou put in ‘currycat’ to see if it would be accepted.

“Well a student is supposed to be devoted to their studies,” Makoto said, a recitation to endure something. “Especially when you’re keeping up as an honors student. My sister says that I absolutely need to succeed now to have a good future.”

“This is just my opinion, but I don’t think life is that fulfilling if you focus on a single goal,” Chou said. “I tried a couple of times and failed; took me a while to recover from that. Now I try to have my options open to possibilities.”

“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” Makoto said.

“Plus I’d rather have some fun alongside my studies,” Chou said, smiling as she saw that her first choice of username was accepted here. It now gave her the stat screen of her generic profile and allowed her a sign-up bonus of level up points, plus a second round of points as the play bonus. She didn’t know what stats were preferred here, so she chose to upgrade weapon accuracy and ammo capacity.

“Well it couldn’t hurt to play occasionally,” Makoto said, taking out her phone to sign up as well. “Though I can hardly believe I’m doing this; I don’t know if my sister would like this.”

“Who said she had to know?” Chou asked.

Makoto laughed nervously. “I, I guess. I usually don’t cause trouble, but, this shouldn’t really be trouble, as long as I keep up my studies.”

“I won’t tell,” Chou said. “Ah, we can register each other as game buddies once the sign-up formalities are done.”

“Really? That’d be nice. Um, it wants a name?”

“Don’t use your real name.”

Makoto glanced over. “To hide it from my sister?”

She shook her head. “No, just general online security.”

“Oh, right, of course. I think…” she signed up under ‘Johanna’. “I read a book recently about a woman who became pope. Her existence can’t be confirmed, but it’s said that she disguised herself as a man to serve in the church. It was a fascinating story to read.”

“That does sound interesting,” Chou said. “I just picked two things I like for my username. Where’d you find that book?”

“It’s in our school library, called ‘The Illusionary Popess’. Hey, why don’t you read it? It’d be nice to discuss books with a friend.”

Nodding, she said, “That’s one of my favorite things to do. Sure, I’ll pick it up tomorrow if it’s available.”

Makoto smiled at that. “That’s great. Um, it might be tough for me to get the time to hang out again, but I hope we can.”

On parting with her, Chou had to head back to Yongen-Jaya to meet her appointment with Dr. Takemi. Makoto wasn’t registered as a confidant yet, but it seemed useful to make friends with the student council president. Plus, she was interested in mysteries and investigations. The boy who had been with the police might be more useful to keep tabs on, but Makoto might also give Chou and Morgana some gauge on how obvious or mysterious they were being.

“Were you hiding your aura back in the arcade?” Chou asked as she had to wait on a train.

Morgana popped out to rest on her shoulder. “Precisely. I wanted to watch, but people would’ve questioned you about me being there. So I made them think I was meant to be there, and they accepted it without realizing it.”

“I knew that was possible if you put on the right act,” she said, a smile creeping on her face. “But to do that through willpower alone? That seems dangerously fun.”

Morgana chuckled. “It’s only because you’re a Persona user and aware of it. So make sure to keep your confidants up because that’ll let you do fun things later on.”

As soon as she walked in the door, someone came out of the door to the exam room. “Close down this clinic, or else!” the man snapped.

“Good day now,” Takemi’s voice drifted in from the exam room with an indifferent sarcasm.

The man fumed in a way that amused Chou; Dr. Takemi clearly knew how to press this man’s buttons. He turned, saw her there, then tried to lose his scowl. “And what are you doing here?”

“An appointment,” she replied calmly. Mokoi let her know that at the moment, it was best to match the doctor’s indifference.

“With the Plague?” the man asked, trying to scare her.

It made her curious, but she felt she should trust her confidants to keep them. “Is there a problem with that?”

“You could end up taking poison, or something worse from a medical error,” he said, still trying to scare her.

She shouldn’t be afraid to do what she wanted; she’d not been afraid to do what was right before, even in bad situations. Chou looked the man squarely in the eyes as Dr. Takemi walked up behind the man, somehow quiet despite her heels. “Rumors won’t faze me as the truth will prevail.”

While she’d meant to exaggerate to show that she wouldn’t be scared, her words made the man flinch hard. The tables were turned and now he was the one trying to hold a mask of courage in front of her. “Very well, take your own responsibility for what happens to you.” He then parted by barreling straight past her.

Takemi gave her a curious look, something trying to get past her facade of indifference. “Ah, there you are. Busy day?”

Chou nodded and came in to close the door. “There was a volleyball rally at school and I ended up hanging out with a friend. Sorry if I’m late.”

“You’re fine.” She waved a hand off at the door. “Don’t mind him. He’s a former boss of mine who doesn’t like that I’ve taken up an independent practice.”

“All right, I’ll take your word for it,” Chou said.

Dr. Takemi then invited her into the exam room. “Really now? That could be dangerous, but I appreciate it all the same. Now, since you’re here for a clinical trial, I need you to understand that you’ll be testing my medicine blind. That is so bias and expectations don’t get in the way of the drug’s actual effects.”

She nodded. “So ideally, this would be double blind testing where you also don’t know what you’re giving me. But due to being independent, I’m the only one who can realistically be blind going into the trials.”

For a moment, she looked startled that she knew. Then she gave a small smile. “Ah, didn’t expect you to be so knowledgeable. That’s good, saves me time explaining why. Is your guide with you again today?”

“Yes, do you need me to send her outside?” she said, setting her bag down and opening it up so Morgana could hop out.

“Ideally, we should,” Dr. Takemi said. “But I don’t have many patients and it won’t hurt to do a little extra cleaning. Her staying around might be useful, if only to have another set of eyes on you.” She then looked at Morgana. “Still, there’s a lot of equipment here that should stay very clean, Miss Guide. I’ll allow you on the patient bed to keep her company, but otherwise stay on the floor.”

“Got it,” Morgana said, sitting down on the floor.

“She agrees to that,” Chou said.

“Then give me a few minutes to get the trial medicine.” When she came back, she had a reddish orange liquid in a dosage cup. “All right, drink up.”

She nodded and drank the provided medicine. Before long, she felt weak all over and foggy-minded. Takemi told her to lie down; Chou must have fallen asleep shortly after. When she became alert again, the window in the office was dark. She still felt hazy, but also like she could move again. Morgana was curled up by her.

“Good evening,” Dr. Takemi said.

“Good evening,” she mumbled, trying to sit up. It made her light-headed.

“You can stay lying down until your head clears up,” Takemi said, taking a clipboard from the desk. “What balloon did I tell you to remember?”

She tried to think, but it didn’t make sense. Lying back down was better. “Balloon? I don’t know.”

“Hmm, I see. I’ll ask again later. Let’s check on your pulse.” She measured her blood pressure too, then asked her questions about her current condition. As the interview went on, Chou’s head cleared up and she was able to sit up on her own. Takemi did give her some motor skills tests, which Chou was clumsy getting through.

“I still don’t remember the balloon,” Chou said at the end of it.

“That’s a problem,” Takemi said. “Understandable, though. We’ll have to see if that persists. You live on the second floor of the cafe, right? You can try some coffee and food to see if that clears up any lingering side effects. If your weakness persists into tomorrow, inform me of it as soon as you can. Any other lingering effects can wait until our next appointment.”

“Got it,” Chou said, although it felt like the weakness was already clearing up.

“And if you give me a few moments to start closing up the clinic, I’ll walk you over there and make sure you can get safely up the stairs.”

“Sure, thanks,” Chou said. “Must be some serious condition to require serious drugs.”

“Mm, you’re right about that,” she said. “What you’re experiencing is preferable compared to the daily conditions of those with the illness this medicine targets. Maybe later, I’ll tell you more.”

Sojiro seemed worried on seeing her condition coming in, nearly getting angry at Dr. Takemi. Chou reassured him that she’d agreed to this and it was all for a good cause. When Takemi said it was good to know that her assistant was with a caring guardian even in these conditions, Sojiro tried to bluff it off gruffly again. But he did come up to check on her before he locked up the cafe for the night; he did care under the rough exterior.

* * *

4/30

Saturday came with a reminder that while they had three days off next week, they would have mid-terms the following week. Chou spoke with her friends about doing some extra study sessions to prepare for the tests. Ryuji groaned about all the studies. “Man, test time is the worst time.”

“I know, but we have to get through it,” Ann said.

“Would you like it better if we had another guy in our study group?” Shiho asked. “I was thinking of inviting Yuuki for preparing for tests at least.”

“That’s a good idea, Ann said. “He did miss quite a few days and must have a lot on his mind.”

“Well that’s nice, but lack of guys is not the problem,” Ryuji said. “It’s just that tests are awful. But sure, misery loves company and all.”

“I’ll invite him at practice later today,” Shiho said. “Do we want to start tomorrow?”

“On our day off?” Ryuji asked.

“Well it’s that or on our holidays,” Shiho said.

“Maybe on Tuesday of our holidays since that’s our day to get together already,” Chou said. “But not every day of the holidays.”

Ann nodded. “Right, we’d want some days to relax.”

Since Shiho was busy with practice, Ann wanted to hang out with her again. They went over to Inokashiro Park as a place to relax for a while. It was a surprising place, full of trees and singing birds. There was even a large lake with boats one could rent to go rowing. Not far down the path, it was hard to tell that they were in a city anymore.

“Oh, look at all the ducks over there!” Ann said, pointing out a group swimming around the edges. “I wonder if someone was feeding them.”

“Or they’re conspiring to take the park from the geese and us humans,” Chou said as a joke.

Ann giggled. “Maybe! A duck versus geese war would be funny.”

“The ducks would be the underdogs,” she said. “Because geese are mean buggers.”

“In that case, I’ll cheer for the ducks,” she said. “But this place is so nice, isn’t it? We’re in the middle of the city, but you can’t tell with all the plants and wildlife around here.”

“Yeah, this place seems more suited to my old hometown,” Chou said. “That’s nice.”

“What was your old hometown like?” Ann asked.

“It was a mix-up of the old neighborhood and the newer industrial center,” she said. “I think some industries in Tokyo had moved out to our town for offices and manufacturing buildings. Still, it’s nowhere near as dense as most places here in Tokyo.”

“This is a dense city,” she said. “You really feel it on the subways. Things never got that packed on Finland’s trains.”

“You lived in Finland?”

Ann nodded. “Yeah, in the town where my father went to art school; he was half-Japanese and half-Finnish, actually. My mother is half-Japanese and half-Chinese, so when I speak with my grandparents, I get talk about entirely different things.”

She didn’t seem that enthusiastic about it. “Must be tough with family spread out all over the world,” Chou said.

“Right, I don’t see them often.” She shrugged. “I grew up mostly in the care of our housekeepers; our current housekeeper would rather I keep out of her way, though.”

“That sounds like a lonely way to live,” she said.

“Yeah,” she said sadly, then smiled and tried to brush it off. “Wow, that got serious all of a sudden. Never mind that; at least it means I’m free to do what I want.”

“That’s alway a boon,” Chou said.

“Yeah, so I’m pretty lucky in truth,” Ann said. “And I don’t feel so lonely these days. Shiho was my only friend for a few years, then Ryuji somehow got attached to us. Now there’s you, and lately I’ve had more girls in school willing to chat with me, even hang out. I can hardly believe it.”

It wasn’t so nice for Chou, but she put it out of mind. That was easier to do with Pixie as her active Persona, to focus on Ann’s thoughts and feelings. “I’ve noticed that; they’re pretty friendly with you.”

Ann smiled, cheerful again. “Yeah! I thought they were all jealous of my looks from the gossip they used to spread. Things have always been about my looks, unfortunately. When I was a kid in Finland, it was always that I was cute. Then I moved here to Tokyo and nobody liked me because I looked different. Then the past few years, girls get super jealous of me and boys keep ogling me. It makes me sick some days.”

Feeling that she wanted to stay cheerful, Chou joked, “I have long been confusing people about if I’m a girl or a boy.”

That made her laugh. “I can see that! But you’d make such a pretty boy.”

“I’d dress like one more often, but it makes people mad sometimes,” Chou said. “They expect girls to want to be cute. Maybe I’ll make myself look more like a boy during the protest.”

“I’d like to see that,” Ann said. “I wouldn’t judge you for not wanting to be cute. I’d rather avoid it myself since cute is for little girls.”

“Sexy, beautiful, and confidant, right?” she asked.

“Yup, you remembered! Kind of funny when I once cursed my looks.” She glanced around the path they were walking, then smiled. “You know, Shiho and I became friends because she didn’t judge me solely based on looks. It was the first year of middle school and we had an art teacher who liked to give us materials and tell us to do whatever. And you know what the first thing Shiho said to me? It was ‘Ann, your paintings suck’.”

Chou chuckled at it. “Points for honesty.”

Ann laughed at the memory. “Really! Apparently they were so bad that she just had to come tell me. But it was the first time at that school where someone said something about me that wasn’t about my looks. We somehow kept talking after that and now we’re best friends. Although, I’m not sure how well I’ve been a friend to her lately. I couldn’t really help her until you pointed out the things to do. Kamoshida told me that he’d take away her position as a starter on the team if I didn’t date her. But, I should’ve trusted her skills more, huh? She’s been an ace at volleyball as long as I’ve known her. He’d have to be dumb to not put someone that talented in an important position.”

“It’s past you guys now,” Chou said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“Right, I should just trust her now,” Ann said. “She’s a wonderful girl; she’ll show everyone that the Shujin volleyball team can overcome their troubles.”

“And we’ll be there to cheer her on,” she said, getting an enthusiastic nod from Ann. “When is Nationals going to be?”

“The first weekend in June,” she said. “They have to win Regionals for Tokyo over the course of May to enter. I’m going to try to attend all the games, so I hope they get the schedule out soon.”

“I’ll try to too, but I’m not sure since I’ve got other things to do too,” Chou said. “I’ve got a job at a flower shop.”

“That’s pretty nice,” Ann said. “Is it the one in the Shibuya Underground Mall? They have some nice flowers despite where it is.”

“Yeah, the owner’s nice to work for. How’s your work?”

“I’m technically on call as a replacement, but it has a flexible schedule,” she explained. “Though it also requires me to be flexible with scheduling too since the magazines have deadlines and catalogs want shoots at certain times of the year. Actually, several girls have gotten in trouble lately for missing shoots. It’s been bad enough that the agency sent out an email warning us to be certain of the meet-up times and locations.”

“That seems odd,” Chou said.

Ann nodded. “It does. Apparently the girls have been saying that they got a last minute email telling them that the time or location had been changed. The guys haven’t had problems, and it hasn’t happened to me yet. My parents told me that if such things happen, I should always call the agency and double-check such changes with them. If I know the staff involved, I could call them too, but our agency is a big one. It’s hard to know everyone.”

“How do you keep up in such a competitive job?” she asked, having been curious about it.

Ann scratched her head. “Well, I did have an in with my parents being fashion designers. My first job as a model was as a replacement, actually, when a child model for one of their shows got sick last minute. They didn’t want to involve me unless I wanted to be, but I had fun at those early shows and helped them display their designs for children’s clothing. Then I just kept going. There are some important things to keep in mind, like how you hold yourself.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The question worked as hoped as Ann shifted her bag. “Your poise and posture. Even if it’s a photo shoot, you have to know how to pose and hold still while the photographer takes several shots. Actually, here.” She put a hand on Chou’s shoulder. “Spine straight! Keep your shoulders relaxed and down, not tense and hunched up.”

She followed the orders given. “Like this?”

“Right. That makes you look confidant. While posed, keep your head up too unless you’re going for a shy or coy look. And there’s a way to walk during fashion shows to best show off the style on display. Sometimes it’s useful to impress others outside shows, if you’re interested in learning how.”

When working as Joker, she didn’t want to be noticed. But being noticed and looking confidant could be useful in other situations. Maybe even with negotiations with Shadows. Chou nodded. “Sure, could be useful even if I don’t model.”

Ann was happy that it was and instructed her on how to hold herself like a model for the rest of their walk through the park. By the time they left, other visitors were looking at them in admiration for having style despite not changing their outfits at all. It reminded Chou of the times she’d had fun attracting everyone as a pretty boy type; it was nice to get that attention as a girl too.

Once they parted ways, Chou and Morgana searched for a few different Palaces. She’d been searching a set of intriguing names in Yongen-Jaya, at school, and now here at the park. Technically, just two location searches should work; three made the search more precise. But of those they could reach and scout that evening, neither seemed workable as their next step up as a target. Perhaps fighting and training in Mementos was the better plan?


	18. Protest of Pants

5/1

Chou got up early to do her usual Sunday morning chores, this time reading ‘The Illusionary Popess’ while waiting on her laundry to get done. Then Ryuji called her up to do some late morning running, before rain came in the afternoon. Since there was a promise of the best ramen in town for lunch afterward, Chou agreed to it. They ran in Aoyome-Itachi because Ryuji was familiar with that area for long runs, then took the trains to Ogikubo for lunch.

They had to wait a few minutes to get seats, but it was worth it. The broth was full of flavor, the noodles were perfectly done, and the other ingredients were well-balanced. “This is really great,” Chou said.

“Yeah, it’s the perfect thing after a good run,” Ryuji said enthusiastically. “A refreshing light soup to build your energy back up without weighing you down like those burgers. Me and the guys used to always come by here after a Sunday practice.” Then he briefly lost his energy to seem wistful.

“You mean the track team?” Chou asked.

“Yeah, they’re how I found out about this place,” Ryuji said.

“Do you want to rejoin the team if they get back together?” she asked.

“I dunno,” he said, then sighed. “I want to get back into running, even if it’s harder now. And I miss being part of the team. I just don’t know if I can rejoin. The rest of the guys might not accept me.”

“They do seem to be holding a grudge,” Chou said. “That sucks.”

Ryuji nodded. “Yeah. You’d think running is an individual thing, so it doesn’t matter that I’m not on a team. But there’s just something good in having a team to belong to. You want to cheer them on and feel cheered on by their words, even their jests and taunts. I haven’t felt eager to do much of anything until you showed up and asked me to show you the ropes.”

“I’m glad, though I’m not looking to be competitive,” she said. “Is there any way you could make up with them?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe if I joined with the agreement to do some of the team managing jobs that nobody really wants to do? It’d suck, but I’ve done a lot of those things and they’re not that horrible.”

“That would show you’re willing to earn your place back,” Chou said. “You could help train the freshman who join since they wouldn’t have a history with you.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Ryuji said, seeming more enthusiastic about the idea. “I’ve had fun teaching you. But do you think they’d want me to dye my hair back?” He fiddled with his short blond hair. “I’ve gotten to like this.”

“Meh, you do you,” Chou said, making him laugh.

Ryuji had a part-time job to go to after lunch, so Chou headed off to track down some more Palaces. When those she investigated turned out to be too strong also, she and Morgana went back to Shibuya to enter Mementos. More requests had turned up as word of Kamoshida’s change of heart spread, along with stories of the three she’d changed last time. She chose two more that seemed like worthy targets.

“Can you handle three again?” Morgana asked.

“I’ll get used to it,” Chou said, searching for the third request. “I’ll need to in order to keep working like this. Hey…”

“What is it?” Morgana asked, stepping on her lap.

She tilted her phone to show her. “A few people have reported me based on rumors of me being a killer. I thought this app was supposed to screen out false reports.”

Morgana’s ears twitched. “Hmm, we’ll have to be mindful of that going forward. But since you are connecting a person to their sins, you should be able to tell the truth.”

Looking over the requests to steal her own heart gave her an idea. “You know, the police officers were willing to dismiss me as a suspect based on how new I was to the school.”

“It makes sense to them,” Morgana said. “They don’t know about your sense of justice.”

“What if I accept one of these requests in order to give them another reason to not suspect me as one of us?” she suggested quietly.

Her ears perked up at the suggestion. “Oh yeah, that’s perfect! If it looks like you’ve been targeted by us, then normal logic leads to the idea that you can’t be one of us.”

Chou nodded as she accepted herself as a target. “If we come across a mistaken request like that, I’d do something similar to what I did with Daisuke: I’d send an apology text as Joker and suggest they avoid the things that got them suspected in the first place. For now, I can save a snapshot of the texts to me from Joker, something I could bring up to investigators that I can’t dissuade with other tricks.”

“Heh, this is perfect. We should still be careful to leave no traces, but this is an excellent red herring.”

Along with that, she picked out a request about a woman’s ex-boyfriend stalking her to go with the rest. Mementos had a different atmosphere that afternoon; they could hear the rain as if it were falling outside the tunnels. Ace suggested that they might run into different Shadows and treasures today because of the rain. To begin, they shifted to the rest area so Ace could get a sense of where their targets were. One they had to go back upwards for, while the rest were downward.

They took out a second target in the bully who’d been controlling Daisuke, but Ace didn’t transform back into a van right away. “Uh, Joker? I’m sense two distinct targets below us.”

“That woman only reported one stalker,” Joker said.

She rubbed her chin. “Perhaps accepting yourself as a target did something? Let’s keep going and see; I’m really curious about this now.”

A couple levels down, they found the stalker Nakanohara in one of the rail rooms. There was a lot more color in there than normal, hinting that a Palace was starting to form. “What are you doing here?” Nakanohara asked, bringing up an arm and making his dark flames flare up around him. “Are you thieves?”

“We’re phantom thieves out to steal your heart!” Ace said.

“No, I won’t let you!” Nakanohara’s Shadow said, yanking his black flames around and turning into an imp with a large paintbrush. “I don’t want to lose anything ever again!”

The Shadow kept dancing around, painting up other Shadows to try getting out of their sights. Joker left Ace to keep an eye on Nakanohara while she used her varied powers to keep the other Shadows in check. When she could see him, she used her stronger skills to attack him. There were points where it got chaotic, but once they defeated Nakanohara, the Shadows he’d summoned vanished.

“Am I going to lose everything again?” Nakanohara asked in fear as the colors turned to red and black. “N-no, please, don’t do this to me. Don’t take her from me. She treated me like a plaything, but I’m not letting go.”

“She doesn’t want to stay with you,” Joker said, connecting Nakanohara to his sins. Compared to the other two today, his sins were not as bad. He was getting angry at people who tried borrowing things from him, even in his office. And he was following his ex-girlfriend around, trying to get her to take back dumping him. Even if he hadn’t hurt anyone yet, it was clear that his views were becoming distorted. They might have stopped him before he began hurting others.

“I, I, I don’t want to lose anything anymore,” Nakonahara stammered, starting to cry. “If you can do this, why did you go after me? I haven’t done anything, not really.”

“We’re helping anyone in need,” Joker said. “And you are making things difficult for others. You could have become a dangerous sinner.”

“Ah, yes, I can see that now,” Nakanohara said. “But really, could you go against someone worthy, like Madarame? He stole my whole life from me. I’m lucky not to be homeless and destitute, or even dead.”

“Madarame?” Ace asked.

Nakanohara nodded. Unfortunately, he vanished back to himself. Joker rubbed her forehead. “That might’ve been a potential target, but can’t do much with just that name.”

“Right, but maybe he’ll hear of how to send you a request,” Ace said.

“We’ll have to hope for that.”

After getting through a bunch of fights with Shadows, they came upon another portal to a separate room. “The ghost target is here,” Ace said. “It might be another budding Palace; I can’t tell what’s in there. Want to check it out?”

“We have Goho-Ms,” Joker said. “Let’s take a look.”

Through the portal, they came to another regular rail room that the Mementos targets were usually in. There was nothing in there at first glance. When they came into the room itself, blue flames burst out around Joker. Chains appeared around her arms and ankles, extending ahead to reveal Arsene. “Hello, you targeted yourself this time.”

“Yes, for a red herring,” Joker said.

Arsene chuckled and tipped his hat. “I approve. However, I have a challenge for you if you feel up for it. You’ve seen how being connected to sin affects your prey. You know how it affects yourself. Are you daring enough to connect yourself to your own sins?”

Her own sins… she knew she made mistakes. What would this power reveal to her? “That sounds a little crazy,” Ace said.

“People will hate us for doing this to others,” Arsene said. “We are forcing people to change their rotten hearts. But if she can withstand her own power, we will know that we are worthy of it and can seek our own justice in this manner.”

She’d been thinking along those lines too. “I think I can take it,” Joker said, clasping her hands together. “So I’ll do it.”

“I hope this doesn’t hurt you,” Ace said, looking up to her in concern.

“If it hurts, I deserve it,” she said, then connected her power to herself.

What came next was a deluge of visions and feelings of others towards herself. There was the suffocating feeling of guilt from her targets, including an utter abyss of guilt from Kamoshida over his crimes. She didn’t feel the fears of her fellow students; it was a false belief. But she did feel intimidation from those she stood up to. There was exasperation and irritation from those who had to fix up her actions in posting Kamoshida’s calling card and other pranks. She also felt feelings of betrayal and broken hearts, from those who’d had crushes on her and she failed to return their feelings. Or when she turned out to be a girl when they thought she was a boy. There were also small guilts from trouble she’d caused her parents, mostly things she’d done when she was younger. They felt some sorrow now, but for crimes that she did not commit.

“You okay?” Ace asked, seeming more distant than she was.

Clenching her fists to withstand it, Joker said, “Yeah… these are things I expected.”

“It’s full of things that are necessary for change, correct?” Arsene asked.

“And my own mistakes, but yes,” she said with a nod. “The worst of it was required for things to change and improve.”

“Good, you understand.” He put a hand to his chin. “Madarame is the next logical step, for the plans of the Game Master but also for your own. Go ahead and search for a way to his Palace. We can go off the rails once conditions are better.”

“All right.”

Once they found a rest area on the next level down, Joker and Ace headed out to finish off their red herring and start figuring out who Madarame was.

* * *

5/2

Sojiro did a double-take on seeing her come downstairs that morning. “You’re wearing the boy’s uniform today?”

“Just the pants,” Chou said. “It’s for a protest about how the principal and others overlooked what Kamoshida was doing to his victims. A lot of girls are going to show up in pants today, even the student council president.”

He looked at her a moment, then nodded. “Good plan; I hope the school listens. Though you do look a lot like a boy now.”

“I have some experience with that,” she said, much to his exasperation. Still, he offered her some coffee to go with her breakfast and didn’t outwardly complain.

As she went to school and then to her homeroom, Chou didn’t see any skirts around. Even Kawakami and other teachers were wearing pants instead of skirts or dresses. When the first bell of the day rang, Makoto’s voice came from the school PA system to announce the day’s protest and call out any of the teachers or staff who protected Kamoshida over any of his victims. Everyone in Kawakami’s homeroom cheered as she said that those teachers had failed in their responsibility towards the students in doing so.

At the end of classes, Chou declined hanging out with Ann on the excuse that she had some business with her part-time job to handle. After looking through the guest book again, they located a mention of a Madarame. He wasn’t a direct supporter but someone that a few of Shido’s associates used to further their own power. If it was the same Madarame as Nakanohara mentioned, taking out his Palace might not affect Shido much yet. But Arsene thought it was a good next step and Chou was inclined to believe him.

She had a plan to figure out more information, in particular Madarame’s full name.

* * *

As soon as everyone was settled in for the school board meeting, Principal Kobayakawa pounded a hand on the table and demanded, “What has been going on today?”

“The students have been protesting our lack of actions to stop Kamoshida,” Ms. Usami said bluntly. “And those of us who have been in the dark have joined with them.”

“But you’re all in improper dress!” Kobayakawa said. “This is not setting a good example, nor giving our school a good image! We can’t be doing that when people are already looking at us critically. Our reputation is going to plummet!”

“Mr. Kobayakawa, you’d anger much of the student body if they heard you say that,” Ms Chouno said, narrowing her eyes at him. “We’ve had students hospitalized because of Coach Kamoshida; we nearly had one commit suicide on school grounds! Why should we be worried about our reputation when such terrible abuses slipped by unchecked? Or did you know about his crimes and were letting him get away with them?”

“That’s not the point here,” Kobayakawa said angrily. “We are talking about a breakdown of order, a multitude of students breaking school rules.”

“And what, are you going to put every girl in school in detention?” Mr. Hiruta said. He was wearing a white armband as well. “If you’re worried about image, that will be seen as bad on us too. But I believe that the students have a good point. We’re supposed to give them a safe environment to learn and it seems we have failed. Thus we need to help those who’ve been hurt.”

Ms. Kawakami took out the school guidelines, feeling that the principal might keep harping on a technicality. “And by the way, there were no rules broken. There is no rule specifying that girls must attend school in skirts; they simply must be in uniform. I can show you that here so we can get to the important matter of how Kamoshida’s crimes were covered up and ignored.”

“That’s nonsense!” Mr. Yamauchi said, so she had to bring up the uniform code on a projector so they could get that out of the way.

This led to a long board meeting full of arguments, between those who wanted to keep the school’s reputation from falling apart and those who wanted acknowledgment and reparations. But those more concerned about reputation were on weak grounds. For one thing, the media already had gotten news and footage of the protest. The principal had to agree to not punishing any student who took part and, with great reluctance, hire an extra counselor to help the victims.

Sadayo kept thinking through the meeting that this was not where she wanted to be in her career as a teacher. Not with these arguments and cover-ups, nor with her own cover-ups. But it was important to protect and support the students. She didn’t want past mistakes to be made again.

* * *

According to the request about Nakanohara, he was a clerk at City Hall. Chou was already dressed like a boy today, so she went right to the government building to search him out. The city hall had a directory where she was able to track him down to a license office. In a busy room, she spotted him at a window taking care of visitors and making sure they had their forms straight. She waited a moment for him to finish with one visitor, then used the Metaverse app to invite him into her own layer. Her willpower made her and Ace appear in their masked forms.

Joker passed her phone over to Ace, then crossed the room while he was busy with some papers. “Natsuhiko Nakanohara.”

“Please wait for your number to be called,” he said dryly without looking. She drummed her knuckles on the desk when he continued to ignore her. Once he looked up, his eyes went wide. “H-huh? You…”

She waved to make sure he noticed the red gloves. “Joker, the one who stole your heart yesterday.”

“I’ve taken care of things already,” he said, looking aside. “I called her one last time, to apologize and promise that I would leave her alone now. And I will. I need to be more careful.”

“Then that’s in the past,” Joker said. “But you mentioned something in the dreamworld as we parted. You wanted me to steal the heart of someone named Madarame.”

“Huh, will you do it?” he asked, looking up at her.

She nodded. “Sure; we help those who are in need, those who cannot change their circumstances on their own. However, the information you gave is not enough to track Madarame down.”

“It’s not? Then what do you need to know?”

“His full name,” she said, tapping the counter again. “And what your reason is for wanting the distorted desires of his heart stolen.”

“His full name is Ichiryusai Madarame,” Nakanohara said, letting Ace put it into the search bar. “He was my art teacher; he’s the most famous artist in Japan right now, renown for his multitude of styles. However, I don’t believe that he’s made his own work of art in years. He plagiarizes the work of us students. And when we complain about it, he blackens our names in the art world so that no one will take us serious as artists again.”

“That sounds serious,” Joker said. Meanwhile, Ace tugged at her pants leg to show her: Madarame did have a Palace. “How does he work?”

“From what I can tell, he searched out young artists in bad conditions, often those still in school. He then brings us to live in his atelier in Shibuya, promising to provide us with guidance and equipment. He does provide the equipment, but his guidance is severely lacking. He teaches no lessons. Instead, he criticizes and degrades us while pretending to be kind and helpful, and he makes us feel like we owe him everything. When we finish a piece, he tells us how terrible it is, claims it as his own, and then takes all credit for it publicly. He copies and sells them exclusively for his own profit. I discovered on my own that he actually lives in a mansion outside of Tokyo and is very wealthy, while those of us at the atelier often lack food or basic necessities. He’s even stolen the inheritance of orphans and left them penniless when they try to act against him.”

“Is that why you left him?” Joker asked.

“N-no, I had run away from home,” he admitted. “But, there was another student many years my senior at the atelier when I lived there. One of his pieces earned a great deal of accolade in the art world, even internationally. But it was under Madarame’s name and he found out by a report in an art magazine. He killed himself out of despair and Madarame hushed it up immediately. I left after that as it was too much, and lost my bank account and any reputation I had as a result. I just wanted to keep drawing and painting, but I nearly became someone terrible too, huh?” Nakanohara closed his eyes, deeply regretful.

“You have another chance now,” Joker said. “Thanks for telling me about that. Does he have any students right now?”

He nodded. “Just one to my knowledge, a young man named Yusuke Kitagawa. He would be a junior in high school this year. But he’s been with Madarame even longer than I was, since he was a small child. Before I left, I asked him if he wanted to leave too. He said that if he could leave, he would. I understand those feelings; it’s a trap that’s hard to see. I hope he doesn’t fall to committing suicide either, but I could see it happening if he stays in Madarame’s care all on his own. When I first asked you, I just wanted revenge on Madarame. But, I’d like to ask this for Yusuke-kun’s sake too. I hope you can do something.”

“We can, have no doubt in that,” Joker said confidently. “Also, may I ask a favor of you?”

“What is it?” he asked.

She took out a blank copy of the calling card that she’d kept, glad that she had it on hand. “This is a calling card we use to tell the sinners that we have made them a major target, rather than someone like you who only gets a text. It sounds like Madarame is someone we’ll want a calling card for. Can you improve the design? We’d like something bold and memorable.”

Nakanohara took the copy and looked both sides over. “Huh… it is bold, but cluttered and without a clear wholeness to the design. You want something similar to this?”

“If you could,” Joker said.

“I think I can fix it up to something better, keeping a dramatic flair,” Nakanohara said. “Sure, can you give me at least three days? I’ll see what I can do.”

She nodded. “Sure, and I’m counting on you to keep silent about this.”

“Of course,” Nakanohara said, looking thoughtful. “I have kept drawing, even if I can’t show anyone my works now. But talking to you today, I feel like I can trust you. You seem honest and earnest.”

“If things work out, your reputation as an artist may be restored,” Joker said.

“Oh, but how am I going to get the new design to you?” Nakanohara asked, puzzled at that.

“Are you going to be here at work in four days?” Joker asked. Friday; she had her appointment, but could spare some time to do this. When he nodded, she said, “I’ll come back to pick up your design just like this. It won’t take any time; you’ll notice that not even a minute has passed when we’re done.”

“Really?” He looked at her in awe.

She nodded. “Really. We are in a realm of dreams, after all.” She smiled at him. “Thank you, I look forward to what you can do.”

She then gathered shadows to her so she could slip out of his sight and to the wall before returning them to the real world. At his desk, Nakanohara stared at the card for a moment, then hurriedly put it away in an envelope and called for the next visitor to come talk to him. Good, she should be able to trust him. She retrieved her phone from the floor where Morgana was sitting by it, let the cat back in her bag, then left before anyone noticed them there. She took a random pamphlet to pretend like she was reviewing it as she headed out. If things worked out, anyone who saw security recordings of this meeting shouldn’t find anything suspicious going on.

After checking the time, Chou went to work at the flower shop, to make sure she got some hours in this week. She still hadn’t read the Flowerpedia, but she managed to put together some satisfactory bouquets nevertheless.

* * *

5/3

Since there was so many of them at their study session on a day off school, Ann invited them to meet up at her house. It was larger than the house Sojiro had in the back streets of Yongen-Jaya, decorated in a way befitting the home of fashion designers. “Be careful with anything around here,” Ann said to all of them. “My parents said they don’t mind visitors, but if the housekeeper complains, they might not let me do this again.”

It was amazing to Chou, nothing like she was used to a home being. There was a cabinet on one wall displaying fancy china dishes and elegant colored glasses. Taking advantage of the dining room table, they were able to sit around comfortably to study with snacks and drinks on hand. Everything looked clean and new, hardly used. There was even a bowl of potpourri in the room that lent a flowery scent to the air.

“Your house is really nice,” Yuuki said, equally as wide-eyed as Chou felt.

“It’s too nice in my opinion,” Ann said. “There’s a bunch of stuff that we can’t actually use because they’re only to be pulled out on special occasions. Any damage or stain gets my allowance docked, so again, please be careful.”

“That seems so silly to me,” Shiho said. “Why have stuff if it never gets used? But yeah, it’s the house rules, so we have to follow them here.”

Ryuji and Shiho were in the same class, so they shared notes on what could be on their tests. Ann and Chou reviewed their classes with Yuuki to make sure he had information from the days that he’d missed. While doing so, Yuuki tried to figure out her notes. “You’ve got more doodles in there than notes.”

“I know,” she said. “But I can remember things based on the homework pages and the doodles.”

“I wish that kind of thing worked for me,” Ann said. “Though I would like to know some better way to take notes.”

“If you can figure out a shorthand that works for you, that helps,” Yuuki said, sharing a view of his own notes. They were full of formulas, character and phrase lists, and code-like additions. “I learned this in middle school because one of our teachers made us take notes like this for an entire term. It makes it easy to keep up even with teachers who talk fast.”

“That might help,” Ann said, looking it over. “I can kind of make sense of that. Maybe I can find something like this online.”

“You should be able to,” Yuuki said.

Eventually, they got around to reviewing what would be on the math test together. “It’s mostly stuff you should’ve learned previously, so they can start on new stuff after mid-terms,” Chou said. “So if there’s anything you know you had trouble with last year, it could be useful to review it.”

“Like all of it?” Ryuji said.

“Well that might be too much,” she admitted. “But there’s likely to be complicated looking formulas in the test since there were several classes spent on order of operations for algebra.”

“We can’t let the look of them intimidate us,” Shiho said, leaning forward like she was talking before a volleyball match. “We can overcome them. We can solve the maths!”

“Yes, we won’t let the maths win,” Chou agreed.

“All right, we’ve got to put up a good fight, just like we trained,” Ryuji said, getting into the spirit of it.

“So let’s solve some problems!” Ann said.

“I, I guess, sure,” Ryuji said.

“The algebraic order of operations?” Yuuki asked. “That’s not too hard; it’s something basic to understanding higher levels of math.”

“Algebra seems like magic or something,” Ryuji said, waving a hand. “Making letters mean numbers and having to juggling them all around signs and stuff. I’m starting to get it.”

“Then you need to practice, just like with your runs,” Chou said, bringing out some worksheets with practice problems she’d found online. “Here’s today’s drills, based on this term’s lessons.”

“Hoo boy, that makes more sense than I want to admit,” Ryuji said, taking one of the sheets. “Still don’t see how I’m going to use this normally, but have to pass math class.”

They ended up spending all day on their studies and chatter. Chou already wasn’t concerned with exams and it seemed she’d helped her friends feel more confidant about them. To her, that was a win.

* * *

Mental shutdowns… the line between criminal and victim got blurred. The ones who had shutdowns went into a catatonic state. Their eyes often leaked a black ooze and would not move. In contrast, their rest of their body still worked. The victims needed constant care and showed no signs of recovering. Before their shutdown, those who knew the victim reported that they behaved strangely in the few days before the shutdown: slow to react, lethargic, less emotional, often fatalistic and world-weary. Could be mistaken for suicidal. Then they often did something uncharacteristic of themselves right as they had their mental shutdown, which was what led to accidents.

Psychotic breakdowns… the perpetrator was clear but they were incapable of explaining themselves. They often did not recall anything of their crimes. For those who had a break under surveillance, they could be seen with black ooze leaking from their eyes. A few could recall cleaning such stuff from their face. Most were stressed but not all of them. They did things uncharacteristic of themselves. There were fewer signs ahead of the break, perhaps some disorientation, perhaps some weariness.

There were clear parallels here, including one of the biggest mysteries of these cases: how they were happening.

And now, this case of Suguru Kamoshida… the coach had been stressed and mildly paranoid before his major change. And what a change it was, a complete 180 from a man who preyed upon high school girls and beat high school boys to the point of hospitalizing them. He was a humiliated and guilt-ridden man now, prone to sudden weeping and convulsions as he had flashbacks to his own crimes. There was no black ooze and he was still capable of taking care of himself. In fact, when she visited him in prison, he was doing things to try not thinking.

Curiously enough, many people involved in the Kamoshida case reported having strange dreams around the time of the coach’s sudden change. Kamoshida himself reported a person with red gloves who haunted his dreams for a week, then forced him to feel the weight of his sins and the pains of his victims. As for the victims themselves, they also recalled a person with red gloves who invited them to punish Kamoshida. They said that the person, perhaps one of the phantom thieves from the calling card, encouraged them and protected them. As for the calling card itself, it was either a dramatic act to draw attention to the case or a bizarre coincidence of a prank. The later seemed unlikely.

Mental shutdowns, psychotic breaks, the so-called theft of a heart… they all involved something psychological changing drastically within someone key to the case. And they were all difficult to explain through ordinary means.

“I truly believe that we need to call in someone with experience in supernatural cases,” Sae told her boss after explaining the matter. “They happen; it is clear that there can be a burst of supernatural activity in one location. I believe that such a thing may be occurring now in Tokyo. Of course, we cannot say that for certain. But it would be in our best interests to bring in an expert team of paranormal investigators to examine what has been going on the past couple of years.”

The SIU director looked at her for a moment, then sighed. “Nijima, I cannot believe that you of all people are bringing that up in front of me.”

“It is not implausible,” she said firmly. “Therefore, it would be worth the effort to do this. At least get advice and find some evidence that would clearly link a supernatural factor in these cases.”

“No, I believe that there must be some entirely natural and rational explanation behind all these cases,” he said. “Perhaps some experimental street drug.”

“A drug that has yet to come up in any tests we have put the victims and perpetrators through?” Sae countered him. “That is an avenue we have looked into several times now with little conclusive results. This may also be a loose end that can be tied up as negative, but at least it wouldn’t be dangling there with its possibilities.”

“Any so-called paranormal expert turns out to be a quack, knowingly so or not,” the director said. “Calling in such a team would only muddle up these cases further.”

This wasn’t promising, but she didn’t want to back down now that she brought it up. “Sir, we have a team that is devoted to keeping tabs on demonic activity; I am aware of that. It is acknowledged behind closed doors that there exists a supernatural side of the world. We can at least ask the demon research group for their thoughts on this case and if my idea should be pursued.”

“We do not bring up such matters because speaking of the supernatural stirs it up,” he said. “That is part of why such an addition to the investigation will muddle things up. You should focus on the natural and rational sides of things. Those matters should explain things completely once we get a break in these cases.”

“I believe this is a rational means of pursing this.”

But no matter what was argued, it seemed neither of them were willing to give way. Sae was left with instructions to continue processing the cases normally and not to go off on her own theories. Did he want this case solved or not? Sometimes, she wondered if the latter was true.

But if she argued with him too much, she’d be demoted and have to work even harder to get back into place. Sae was already putting in more work than her male peers just to stay in place, at least it felt like it. The men would buddy up with each other in bars after hours and help to promote each other. But if she showed up to drinking hour with them, things would inevitably come to them trying to convince her to give up on law to marry them. As if; she wasn’t going to give in and become someone’s humble wife after working so hard to make herself successful.

Back in her own office, she shut the door and shook her head. “Why ask me to do this when you keep blocking off my investigations? There is some thread connecting them all… although this case with Kamoshida is certainly outside the norm.”

Yet if she could break this case, she’d be another step further along in her career, a step further towards feeling secure.


	19. Golden Week

5/4

Early in the morning, Ryuji texted her and asked if she wanted to go see a movie.

Ryuji: They’ve got a special today with an American classic, Rocky. But I don’t know if it’ll be dubbed in Japanese.

Ryuji: So you think you can come along to help me understand if it isn’t?

Ryuji: It doesn’t seem like Ann’s kind of movie.

Chou: Sure, can do.

Ryuji: Great, thanks! See ya at the Shibuya theater!

The movie turned out to be using English dialog with Japanese sub-titles. Chou could follow along using both. Even with it in another language, there wasn’t anything too difficult with understanding it. It was a tale of an underdog boxer who trained to defeat a big-name champion. Once she realized that, she was glad Ryuji wanted to see it; it could be good for him. Chou even felt like she could get back what she’d lost after watching it.

“That was awesome!” Ryuji said as they came out of the theater; Chou chuckled a little at the thought that he’d been holding that in until they got out. “I mean, I wish they’d dubbed it in Japanese, but I got the hang of it after a bit. That training sequence was great!”

“Makes me want to go train with that kind of spirit,” Chou said. “Like I could do anything I put my mind to.”

He nodded eagerly. “Yeah! Hey, wanna go run somewhere? We kind of sat around studying yesterday, and just spent a couple hours sitting in the theater. We gotta get moving to become stars like that!”

“Sure, how about Inokishira Park?” she suggested. “It is Greenery Day, after all.”

“Sounds good,” he agreed. “A nice run among the fresh air and trees ought to be energizing. All right, let’s go! Though actually, there was something I wanted to ask you. It’s, uh…” he rubbed his neck.

“I’ll try not to make fun of you for it,” Chou said as a joke, hoping to lighten things up.

“You’ll just try?” he asked, grinning at it. “Anyhow, this might sound cheesy, but I’m going to spend tomorrow with my mom. She has a hard time of things, you see. First it was with my dad who’d drink all the time and end up beating her. It took a lot of courage for her to divorce him and she still gets anxious about a lot of things. Now it’s trying to work to support us, and having to deal with me being a kinda trouble maker.”

“That sounds like the right thing to do,” she said, being more serious on hearing what it was about. “You are the man of the house now, right? So you have to take good care of your mom.”

It worked to make him smile, a gentler one than just before. “Yeah, that’s it. I’ve got a job too to make things easier on her, and I’ve got to get myself back in running shape for my own sake and hers. I want it to be a nice day for her where she doesn’t have to pay anything to have some fun. So, she likes books and you do too; I know you’re new around here, but you think she’d like to look around some bookstores? I’ve heard of one.”

“In Jinbocho? I’ve been there and there’s a lot more than just one.”

“Yeah, that’s the place.”

Chou nodded. “If she likes books, then I’m sure she’d love those stores. It’s like I told Shiho when we were there; that area is a street full of treasure to us bookworms.”

“All right, then I’ll do that for her,” Ryuji said, then shrugged. “I mean, I only read occasionally, usually manga, but she reads a lot. Some of her books are falling apart. New ones should make her happy, I hope.”

After they ran in the park and got some ramen afterward, Chou went to the book stores. There was one called ‘Reading the Stars’ that advertised books on healing crystals, aromatherapy, and astrology. That would be the place to find something about Tarot cards, she thought. Going inside, she noticed it smelled less like old books and more like vanilla and flowers. There were a bunch of crystals dangling on strings and sitting in baskets, with little cards nearby describing what effects the different stones had.

In a section on healing oils and flowers, she spotted the Flowerpedia that her boss had recommended. That would be important as she kept working there; she took a used copy as it was cheaper. The section on Tarot cards were in another area of the shop. A variety of decks were also available there. Would having a deck be useful? It had to do with her confidants.

She immediately got conflicting feelings. She just wanted to know the symbolism, so only the book was useful. However, it was something new to learn, something interesting. Having the book and a deck to try things out was useful. Chou took a deep breath. Which feeling should she go with?

“Something up?” Morgana asked, popping out of the bag.

“Oh, so you are there,” Chou said as a joke.

“I had a good nap in the park today after that awesome movie,” she said. “I really liked it, so we sould see another sometime! But for now, what’s up?”

“I was thinking of looking into the Tarot,” she said quietly.

“Tarot? Something about that seems familiar.” There was an odd tone in Morgana’s voice, like she was trying to remember something.

Chou picked up a display deck and flipped around the card on top. The Magician was there, using a magic wand to hold aloft a cup, a sword, and some kind of club. “They show up on my confidants menu. Although, this is your card, but it looks different.”

Morgana stood on her shoulder and leaned forward to get a good look. “Tarot… oh, it’s like, I can almost grasp something seeing the card. It’s very familiar… a guide to… to something.”

Only the book was important… the book and the cards were important… and the cards seemed important to Morgana. “I can get a book to learn from and a deck to study with. Would that help you?”

“Yeah, do that,” Morgana said, patting her neck. “Maybe the cards will help trigger my memories.”

“All right, we’ll get these.”

“Hello, do you need some help?” a worker at the store said, coming across them suddenly. Morgana dropped right back in the bag, fortunately unnoticed.

“Yes, I was thinking of picking up a Tarot deck and a book to learn with,” she said, pulling on one of the books there.

“Great, going to start a journey in exploring the unknown?” the woman said, oddly eager.

“Sure,” she said, although in her case the unknown could become dangerous.

“For a beginner, you should start with a standard deck,” the saleswoman said, picking out a box that had a diamond pattern on it. Then she picked out a different book. “And this book is a good companion to learning how to read the cards; that one is a good reference if you already know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks, that should work,” she said, putting the book back for the other.

With the Tarot book and cards acquired, Chou went to the diner in Shibuya to try it out with some coffee. The diner tables were clean with plenty of room to spread the cards out. Before she even cracked the book open, though, she located all the cards for her confidants. They were all different. She took out her phone to compare directly.

Morgana had her paws on the very edge of the table to look herself. “There’s a specific way to spread them, or multiple ways,” she said. “Not messy like this.”

“I’m just looking now,” Chou said, then showed her the listing for The Magician. “The cards for my confidants are different from the cards here.”

“There are different Tarot decks with different art,” Morgana said, looking at the phone. “And different meanings sometimes. But this feels wrong to me. I can’t say why, it just does. The cards on the table are right.”

“I was told that the world is full of distortion at the start of this game,” she said. “You think even these cards are distorted?”

“That’d make sense,” Morgana said, then patted the Magician card on the table. “Here, can you split the deck between Major and Minor?”

“Which ones?” Chou asked.

Following Morgana’s instructions, she separated the cards between the minor arcana (they seemed like they could be substitutes to a normal deck of cards) and the major arcana (they had all the classes of her confidants and more). Morgana wanted to mess with the major arcana. She had her place two cards next to each other (Magician and Fool), then three cards in a triangle (The Lovers, The Chariot, and The Moon). When allowed to, Morgana moved the three cards into one pile and looked at it thoughtfully.

“What does doing that do?” she asked.

“Uhhh…” she turned her ears down. “I don’t know. There’s something so familiar about this, though.”

“Maybe you were a fortune teller?” Chou suggested.

“Maybe? I can tell what the cards mean. If you learn about Tarot, maybe it’ll help jog my memories.”

“It’s safer than diving into Mementos,” Chou said, bringing the cards back together. “Let me read the book and learn from it, then we can discuss these cards to see if it does jog your memories.”

She read slower than normal through the book, to make sure she grasped the meanings of the cards and how to use them. That would be important to helping Morgana. Unfortunately, she didn’t get far into the book before she had to put the cards away and leave the diner. There were parts of it that reminded her of the book about Jungian psychology. The early card descriptions reminded her of the Shadows too. So it all connected…

* * *

5/5

Ann wanted to hang out with her on Thursday. She didn’t have anything particular in mind, so they ended up looking through some clothing stores in Shibuya’s underground mall. “These camisoles are super useful,” she said, stopping by a rack of them. “Some girls prefer them to bras, and they can be light for summer or warm for winter.”

“I thought you weren’t that well informed about fashion,” Chou said teasingly.

“Well, I guess I’ve picked up things here and there,” Ann said. “Oh, here, you might like this one.” She pulled a camisole off the rack. “There are styles that look better with big chests, and those that look better with small chests. You can’t change your natural size, but you can adjust the look with clothes like this. This one does a little flattening to smooth out for a smaller look. Since you like playing to an androgynous appeal, this could help you out.”

“Really?” Chou asked, taking the camisole to check over herself. “Is it comfortable?”

Ann nodded. “This brand is, they’re decent for trying things out with. Not too expensive, although they won’t last as long as top tier brands. I still trust them for the basics.” Then her phone went off. Chou checked the size, soon figuring out that this should fit her. “It’s a message from my agency; they want me to fill in as a substitute in a shoot today.”

“Do you need to head over?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s not that far,” Ann said. “Hey, you want to come? It should only be an hour or two, depending on how many photos they want.”

“Sure, we can head over,” Chou said, putting the camisole back. It was something to keep in mind for later.

Up on Central Street, they came to another clothing shop that was a bit off the main street. Two men and a woman were waiting on them. “Ann-chan, thanks for coming over so quickly,” one of the men said while the other checked on his camera.

“No problem, Kou-san, we were in the neighborhood,” Ann said with a smile. “What’s the shoot for?”

“We’re having a big pre-summer sale and need a model for ads,” the woman said. “I’ll help you put together a few outfits based on our sale items.”

“Got it,” Ann said.

“And who’s this?” the man she called Kou-san asked.

“This is one of my friends, Chou-chan,” Ann said.

“I’ll keep out of the way,” Chou said, bowing her head respectfully.

“Come on in to the fitting rooms,” the woman said. “I’ve got some ideas to start with.”

The outfit that Ann came out wearing was richly colored, with gemstone accessories and nice looking sandals. While the photos were being taken, the woman with the store asked Chou, “Are you a model too?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m just her friend. She’s helping me learn how to dress less like a boy, actually.”

“That would be the challenge with you,” she said, now giving her a studious look. “But you are tall enough to pull off some elegant looks. You’ll probably want to avoid vertical stripes, as it’d over-emphasize your height. Some nicely placed horizontal ones might bring out your curves, though; your body shape shouldn’t make you look fat with those.”

“That’s something to keep in mind,” Chou said.

“Excuse me,” another girl said, stopping by the manager. “Kou-san, I came about the sub.”

“Oh, hello Mika-chan,” Kou said. “We’ve already started with Ann-chan. M’am, do you want one or two models?”

“Two would work better,” the store woman said. “But what’s the cost on that?” They discussed the matter while Ann went back inside to put on another of the chosen outfits.

The other model Mika looked annoyed briefly. “Ugh, I came over as fast as I could.”

“There’ll be other chances,” Chou said.

“But every missed chance means that things take longer,” Mika said. “Did you miss this sub job too?”

She shook her head. “No, Ann-chan’s my friend.”

There was a cold look on her face; Chou tapped into Third Eye and saw that she was taking this rather personally. An aggressive competitor, she guessed. Then Mika said, “I should have guessed that you weren’t a model; you have zero aptitude for beauty.”

“Pardon?” Chou asked.

“No make-up, messy hair, you could be mistaken for a sloppy boy,” Mika said. The sort to belittle someone else when they didn’t get their way, even if said someone had little to do with their problems.

Also the kind of person that wasn’t worth getting mad over. Though, they could be fun to mess with. “Thank you,” Chou said.

“What?” Mika asked, anger flickering in her eyes as she didn’t react as expected.

“Figure it out yourself,” Chou said.

“Oh, Chou-chan!” Ann called as she came out; she had a bright smile on, her curly ponytails swaying. “They have the better brand of the clothes we were talking about at the other store! You should come check it out when I’m done.”

“You looked around there that fast?” she asked, acting surprised.

Ann shook her head. “No, just happened to spot them as I was walking by. It’s a really good brand, I promise.”

“All right, sounds good,” Chou said.

“Mika-chan, we won’t be needing you at this shoot,” Kou said. “We can repay your travel expenses for calling you over; sorry about this.”

“It’s all right,” she said, putting on a sad disappointed look. Being near her, Chou could see it was more like a customer service smile than a real emotion. “I really wanted to help out, since it sounded like you guys were in a real bind this time.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” Kou said, falling for it. “You’ll get another chance. It’s nice that you’re always available for situations like this.”

“Y-yeah, I’ll do my best,” Mika said, rubbing at eyes that were still dry. Once they weren’t looking their way, Mika frowned.

“You’re quite an actress,” Chou said quietly.

“Hmph.” She made a point of ignoring her while watching Ann do her modeling.

Ann did look gorgeous while acting as a model; the store representative even complimented her on her natural smile. However, she seemed a little guarded, mindful of how she was posing. It would be because of Kamoshida, Chou thought. Even with him disgraced, she didn’t want to get attention from another man like him.

When Ann got done and changed back to her normal clothes, Mika smiled cutely again. “Oh, Ann-chan! Great work! I was really hoping for some work today, but it was worth missing out in order to see you in action.”

“Oh, hello, are you new?” Ann asked. “This happens on occasion; there’ll be another chance.”

“So they say,” Mika said. “Hey, so what’s your beauty routine? Like your diet and how often you get your hair permed.”

“Huh?” Ann asked, seeming confused at the question. “I just do normal stuff, I guess? I don’t do too much to my hair since I don’t want it to get damaged.”

“Just normal stuff?” Mika asked, seeming puzzled at it herself. “Don’t you have a special diet you keep to stay in shape?”

“No, it seems like a hassle,” she said.

Mika pouted at that. “Really? Or are you just keeping your secrets close at hand? I understand that, but diets are tough things. I’ve been looking for a good source to import organic almonds to act as a protein replacement, along with a better way to cook quinoa. It’s supposed to be really good for you; maybe you’re supposed to cook it in hard water?”

“I have no idea,” Ann said, seeming lost.

“Me neither,” Chou said.

“And can’t you just use tofu as a protein replacement?” Ann asked. “I usually eat meat if I want meat, or sweets if I want sweets.”

“But isn’t that fattening?” Mika asked.

Ann shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

That got her; Mika sharpened her gaze. “Of course it matters! I have to watch every bit of my diet, count every calorie, skip every sweet, or else I’ll get out of shape! Do you know how many squats I have to do every day? You have to have shapely sexy legs and everything else, or else you’re getting nowhere as a model.”

“Huh?” Ann stepped back and seemed defensive.

“It’s all about sex appeal and a model has to be perfect about it,” Mika said. “You get careless with your routine and you’ll quickly lose appeal. At least that’s how it is for most girls. If you can’t understand that, what right do you have to be a model? Even in trying to be cute, you need to be sexy to appeal to the men, the ones who decide who gets attention.”

“That’s not what I’m looking for,” Ann said, putting a hand to her chest and looking down.

Mika didn’t pick up on the trouble she was causing, or if she did, she didn’t care. “Sex is what this is all about; you have to play to that. Or are you too naive to get it?”

Chou turned to get between Mika and Ann. “Hey, chill out. Just because you have your routine and regiment doesn’t mean everyone does the same.”

“You have no right to give an opinion on sex appeal, tomboy,” Mika said dismissively. “If she has a weak will, she ought to just quit. Hmph.” Mika then strode off.

She turned back to Ann, who still looked upset. “Ignore her,” Chou said. “Come on, we can step over to a quieter spot there.”

“Oh, s-sure,” Ann said, keeping her head down. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said to reassure her, bringing her out of the main traffic flow around Central Street. Once they were in a good spot and Ann felt like she could sit down, Chou let Morgana out to help. Then she texted Shiho.

Chou: Hey, you free?

Shiho: yeah, what’s up?

Chou: Ann’s upset because some girl was being a bitch.

Chou: Want to come help cheer her up?

Shiho: Sure, where are you guys?

Chou: On Central Street of Shibuya, near a shop called Like Jewels.

Shiho: I’ll be right over.

“I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have let it get to me,” Ann said after a moment.

“It’s fine,” Chou said. “It reminded you of bad things, is that it?”

She nodded and blew her nose; Morgana was already in her lap, purring. “Yeah. It was exactly the kind of thing Kamoshida would say to me, giving me all kinds of ‘avoid stress’ beauty tips when he was the reason I was stressed and I hadn’t asked for any of it. Ugh, I can’t believe this. I helped defeat him and he shouldn’t be a problem for me anymore, but I was just reminded of him, and well… well should I really give up modeling?”

“Do you want to give up?”

“It might be the better idea, but I’d feel bad about it,” Ann said. “It’s kind of my connection to my parents, for one thing. I don’t see them much and they don’t ask me about school or grades. But when I do some modeling, I can send them pictures and they’ll chat about it for a bit. And it is fun when it goes well; today was fun until Mika.”

“If you don’t want to give up, it’s unfair for others to bully you into it,” Chou said.

She nodded. “But I shouldn’t be letting people bully me about something I love… I’m just weak.”

“You’re not weak for feeling hurt, or being reminded of bad things,” Chou said. “Mika was talking shit; she might’ve done it intentionally because she saw that it was bothering you.”

“Huh, why would she do that?” Ann said.

“She was pissed because you took the sub job and she didn’t get it,” she said. Feeling a nudge from Pixie, she added, “You should’ve seen her whine about it, all pouty and fake crying trying to get the crew to feel sorry for her and hire her for the job instead.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so unprofessional,” she said, smiling a bit. “But she’s kind of impressive still, right? Working out and paying so much attention to her diet… I never thought it was worth the bother. But even if you’re not going to go that far, you should know that the acting is for when you’re in front of the camera, not out of its view. People get tired of a drama queen; Mom warned me of that when I was young.”

“I’ve seen that for myself,” Chou said.

“My parents are off in their own little world most of the time, but they do have good advice at times. We have fun together when they’re around.” Ann sighed and leaned back against the wall. “What’re your parents like?”

“Tough to deal with,” she said. “My dad just doesn’t know how to get along with women and is far too devoted to his work. Not only is he hardly around, but he isn’t paid much and constantly complains about money. And then my mom believes in some tiger mom philosophy. She was really strict and put a lot of pressure on me. But even if I feel some relief being on my own, I still miss them. I haven’t heard from them since the day before I got arrested.”

“Really? That’s awful.”

Chou shrugged, acting like it didn’t bother her as much as it did. “It might be the terms of my probation, or else they were advised not to provoke the jerk who did this to me.”

“Still sucks for you that this all had to happen.” Ann sighed again, then asked, “Hey, so she was fake crying then?”

Chou nodded. “It was pretty obvious where I was next to her, but she didn’t care about my opinion as much as the agency people.”

“Well that is one way to get away with fake crying,” Ann said, taking it surprisingly thoughtful. “Keep some distance and don’t meet their eyes. But the real trick is, you don’t cry.”

“Yeah, it is fake crying,” she said.

She shrugged. “It can be harder to be convincing than you think. I had to learn to act sad for a photographer who thought he was a genius artist or something. With a closed-up posture, totally opposite of what I was telling you about the other time with a confidant poise, you can convince people that you’re either in tears or moments away from them. Though I just use those techniques when a photographer asks for them, or if it’s a friend that I know won’t care if I give them a hard time. Here, you try.”

A couple minutes later, Shiho found them. “Hey, how’re things?”

“They suck and we’re commiserating,” Ann said. “Wanna join?”

Shiho sat down on Ann’s other side. “Sure, though it’d be best to stop things from sucking. What’s going on?”

Between the two of them, they explained about the sub job and running into Mika. “She was mean, but I can understand her being touchy because she’s working that hard,” Ann said.

Shiho snorted. “She sounds like a bitch to me. Even if you are working hard, it doesn’t excuse whining and putting down others.”

“She’s not afraid of baring her fangs, even if it’s unnecessary,” Chou said.

Shiho poked her own cheeks and said in a silly squeaky voice, “Oh noes, I gots to work sooooo hard to be skinny, I hate that you’re naturally pretty.” Then she tilted her head. “Something like that?”

Ann laughed hard at that. “Something like that. And she even skips meats and sweets. I mean, skipping sweets is probably smart, but meat too?”

“Right, what is she, a rabbit?” Shiho said.

“A super-conscientious rabbit who sticks to organic foods and probably spends for the label,” Chou said.

“I could not give up meat,” Shiho said. “But then, I’m an athlete and it’d hurt me bad if I skimped on my diet. What about you, Chou?”

“I’m going to beat the Big Bang Burger Challenge with Ryuji,” Chou said. “I think that explains enough about my opinion of food.”

“Wow, that giant burger eating challenge?” Ann said, impressed. “That’s wild! I bet they don’t have many girls on the board there!”

“I was one of three female winners for the first challenge, if I recall right,” she said.

“That’s what food and life should be about, about fun,” Shiho said. “And we can make it like that now. We have to be stronger, so that anyone who acts like Kamoshida doesn’t take advantage of us again.”

“Right, or someone like Mika who speaks like him even if she doesn’t realize it,” Ann said, grabbing her bag to get back up. “Thanks girls… we’ve got to get strong so nothing gets under our skin.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m hoping for too,” Shiho said, standing up too.

Chou did as well, after letting Morgana back into the bag. “We can do this. But before we forget, Ann-chan, you were going to show me that better brand of camisole you saw in here.”

She brightened at the reminder. “Oh yeah, that completely flew out of my mind, sorry. Come on, they have good fitting rooms in here, so you can try one on.”

“What kind of camisole?” Shiho asked.

Ann was quick to say, “One with good support and shaping, so she can aim for a boyish profile or a girlish one. It’d be even better than that flattening one that only goes for androgynous.”

“Ooo, sounds fun,” Shiho said, playfully giving Chou a light punch on the arm. “Ann’s great with helping find clothes to flaunt the look you want to present, even if she claims not to be.”

“I am not!” Ann protested as they went into the store.

“You only think so because you’ve been living with fashion experts your whole life,” Shiho said, then had second thoughts. “Um, we just need to be careful we don’t send the wrong message across and get the wrong attention. I still want to act like a normal girl too.”

“Oh hey, you’re back,” the woman who had been at the shoot said, smiling brightly at them. “Thanks again for helping out last minute; I’m sure our ad spread will go wonderfully with your help.”

“Sure, no problem,” Ann said, getting troubled again because Shiho had spoken of distracting thoughts. Then Ann did something surprising. “Um, sorry if I was posing a bit modestly.”

“That’s fine, I prefer that to trying too hard to be sexy,” she said.

There was something to this woman, Chou felt. She might understand more than they expected. “We’ve had some past troubles with a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer, actually,” Chou said.

“Is that so, you mean that teacher that was on the news?” the woman said, sympathetic. When the other two nodded and showed worry, she came over and patted Ann on the shoulder. “It’s tough, but we ladies can’t let the opinions of men like that decide our lives. They’re the ones who are wrong for thinking that we should cater to their every whim and kink. I know, I got tricked into marrying a man who thought that way.”

“Really?” Ann asked, surprised at the sympathy.

She nodded. “My heart said that I was right and I shouldn’t take that kind of abuse, but he convinced me that since I wasn’t getting physically hurt and we were married, it wasn’t abuse and he was right to control and debase me. Even after I decided that he was wrong and escaped him, it’s still hard some days to shake off his words. But it’s growing better, day by day.”

“Wow, how do you be strong enough to free yourself from that?” Ann asked.

“Yeah, it’s real easy to lose confidence at times,” Shiho said.

“Understand that you’re not going to be strong all the time,” she said. “And know that if you feel weak, that’s fine. You’ve been hurt in ways that can’t be seen and most people won’t understand that. But you girls seem like good friends; stick together and keep reminding each other that things can be better. Healing doesn’t come overnight, it’s a day by day process.”

“Th-thanks, we’ll keep that in mind,” Ann said.

The woman nodded sagely. “Good. And if you ever feel uncomfortable or unsafe around this neighborhood, feel free to come in here to wait for a friend. I’ve made sure to train my staff to make girls feel safe here. That’s partly why I like a modest model. Actually, you were Ann Takamaki, right? I’ll make a note and see about requesting you when we need a model again.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to do more work for you,” she said.

Once the store owner had gone back to working, Shiho said quietly, “It’s amazing about the people you can run across, or how kind some people can be unexpectedly.”

“Right, and amazing in finding a nice little store like this that’ll help out in a pinch,” Ann said. “All right, so they were over here. She’s got lots of pretty jewelry too, so you could build a whole outfit here.”

After some looking around, they all ended up buying a little thing or two, then going over to the diner to eat well and do some more mid-term preparations.


	20. Golden Museum

5/6

“Psst, hey.”

The classroom was full of the usual morning babble before the bell rang and Ms. Kawakami arrived. Chou turned to the guy behind her. “Yes, Seong?”

“You wouldn’t by chance be interested in a part-time job in the evening, would you?” he asked. He had weary rings under his eyes.

“Maybe,” she said, since she was now free to spend her evenings out and not keep Sojiro up waiting. “What’s it about?”

“There’s a beef bowl shop in Shibuya that pays pretty well for food service high schoolers can work,” he said. “I’ve been working there for a while now. But it’s a high pressure job because the place is popular and we’ve been losing evening workers. I promise, it’s worth it though.”

“Is that why you’ve been tired lately?” she asked. This wasn’t a great way to convince people to apply for the job. But being tired could affect that.

“That and other reasons,” Seong said. “I’m sticking with school, though. Never mind that, they should have postings in the station. Would you at least give it a try?”

“I’ll think about it,” Chou said in time for Ms. Kawakami to come in and try settling students down as the bell rang.

After school, she went over to the city licenses bureau in order to pick up the new calling card design. Nakanohara had kept some of her elements but made them pop even more. The blue flames came from the one eye peeking out under the hat; concentric circles of bold red and purple made up the background. The back of it even read ‘Steal Your Heart’. “Nice, it’s much better,” she said.

“Did you design the old one yourself?” Nakanohara asked. “I noticed that the technical skills are proficient, but the creative aspects were that of a novice. If you got proper instruction, you could be a pretty good artist yourself.”

“You think so?” she asked. She liked doodling as something to occupy her hands with, but hadn’t thought much about art by itself.

He nodded. “Your linework and shading were nice, just the overall design was too busy and unfocused. But if you want to pursue that, don’t get involved with Madarame as an artist. You’re young enough, I believe, that he’d attempt to target you as one he profits from.”

“I don’t plan on letting that happen, but thanks for letting me know,” she said, tucking the card away in her coat pocket. Then she leaned on the counter. “In exchange for that, if you’re willing to accept all aspects of yourself, I can show you who you could be.”

“Huh?” He tugged at his collar in nervousness, but there seemed to be enough curiosity that it might overcome that.

Joker nodded. “I can awaken your Persona. Think of it as a spirit who will quietly guide and protect you. If you have a Persona, I can call upon you in your dreams in order to help reveal Madarame’s true self to the world.”

“That would be good,” Nakanohara said, looking down in thought. “A spirit to guide… maybe I won’t become so distorted if I have a muse like that. All right, let’s do this.”

“Then we need something we can walk around, like a pillar or small table,” she said.

He brought her back into the work area where there was a rectangular table they could use. She then led him in the Persona game, taking it seriously because it would seem silly to an adult like him. Still, he just had to glance aside at the still forms of his co-workers to nod and recite the calling phrase with her. A shimmering spirit appeared at Nakanohara’s side when he did. Joker couldn’t make out fully what it was, but she felt that it was of the Strength arcana.

“This is who I could be?” he asked in awe of whatever his Persona was.

“You can be stronger than you think if you let yourself grow,” Joker said, guessing at it since she hadn’t made it that far in the Tarot book yet. “Good day then.” She slipped out of his work area before returning them to the normal world and heading out.

Back in Yongen-Jaya, she went to the clinic for the next trial of Takemi’s medicine. Whatever this medicine was, she must have given her a weaker version since it didn’t knock her out fully for a few hours. It still left Chou’s body feeling weak, so she lay on the patient bed with Morgana curled up by her. “You know, this comforting people thing isn’t bad,” Morgana said, looking back at her. “The petting feels nice even.”

“Got your engine purring?” Chou asked quietly while giving her a head rub. Morgana groaned, but pressed her head into Chou’s hand.

“Nice to see that you’re keeping more alert this time,” Takemi said, not realizing the pun there. “How’s your Persona adventures going?”

“Fine, though we’re getting into something big again,” Chou said. “Morgana nearly got knocked unconscious last time.”

“I can let you buy some revival medications, but those will cost more than basic healing,” Takemi said, making a note elsewhere. “I should be able to put together some of those now. Perhaps not tonight, but I’ll see about getting some ready on Monday. I’ll have to get back into the database to double-check on that.”

“Is it trouble getting that information?” Chou asked, since it sounded that way.

The doctor nodded. “A great deal of trouble. I had to call up some old friends to get in contact with someone else who could get me permission into the more detailed information on how to treat you. Once I got in, they seemed glad to have another medical adviser active. See, it’s a Catch-22 situation. While we keep knowledge of the supernatural realms hidden, the raw power of the unknown is greater. But should we let knowledge of the supernatural realms spread, the influence of powerful and dangerous supernatural beings will grow. That includes demons; there have been times and places in the past century when outbreaks of demonic activity have popped up. Even here in Japan, that happens.”

“So because most people think it’s bunk, we don’t have demons wandering around?” Chou asked.

“Pretty much,” Takemi said. “That and people like you usually keep those who would invite demons into the world in check.”

Morgana then lifted her head up suddenly. “Someone’s coming,” she said.

“Is someone coming?” Takemi guessed, glancing at the door. Then she opened up a drawer.

“Morgana says so,” Chou said as the cat hopped off the bed to hide behind a partition.

Takemi handed her a rice cracker snack mix. “This shouldn’t interfere with the trial too much, so have that.”

She nodded and took out a bit to nibble on. The outer door to the clinic then opened, followed by a pounding knock on the wall. “This is the police, on an investigation. Anyone here?”

Although it was the police, Takemi rolled her eyes and answered, “Back here, but be quiet. I have a patient in.”

The officer rudely came right into the exam room. “I was called in on a report of malpractice; I’ll need to see your clinic’s records and shut you down.”

“Can’t shut down with a patient in,” Takemi said, doing something at her computer.

“These are serious charges and I need you to take this seriously,” the officer said, trying to be stern with her.

It wasn’t working well on Dr. Takemi. “Well, here you are.”

“Huh?”

She gestured to the computer screen. “The clinic records that I can give you without a search permit. I’m guessing the actual ‘malpractice’ here is ‘improper billing’?”

“Uh…” he clearly wasn’t expecting her to cooperate like this.

“That’s the only reason I can think of for a clinic to be searched with only one officer and no equipment,” Dr. Takemi said. “But unless you have receipts, I’d say you were sent here on a wild goose chase.”

“How can you be sure of that?” he asked.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened and you’re a fresh face,” she said. “Just out of the training academy, huh? And I would imagine this is following a complaint filed by Medical Chief of Staff Oyamada. He’s using you to harass me, that’s all.”

While he was embarrassed, he wasn’t about to let this go without something to show for it. “Well what about this girl, huh? What are you in here for? You don’t look ill.”

“I’m anemic,” Chou answered, thinking he was bluffing since she was still lying down and weak. She got some more of the rice crackers to eat.

“That’s right,” Dr. Takemi said. “We’re waiting on her to recover from this weak spell so we can discuss her treatment options. There are a great number of serious conditions that don’t have many outward signs. Now please, unless you have receipts or a search permit, leave my clinic.”

That was enough to convince the officer that this was an attempt at harassment. He excused himself and then left. With that done, Takemi got her a paper cup with water and started asking questions. She got through the same ones as before, then threw in, “So your next big move, is it someone younger, older, or similar age range as Kamoshida?”

“Dr. Takemi, what do you mean by that?” Chou asked. Morgana was looking at the doctor in surprise too.

“You’re my patient, so I’m compelled by medical ethics to keep quiet about my dealings with you,” she said, fortunately taking it in stride just like the officer. “I would guess that you have similar inclinations with what you do, which is why I didn’t mention anything before. But I had a thought, so what’s the age range?”

“Much older,” she answered.

Takemi put her pen to her chin. “If they’re elderly or of poor health, they’ll be much more prone to shock from sudden change. Some of that may be unavoidable, but I’d advise keeping away from aggressive actions that may compromise the health of an old person. That’s just so unfortunate turns don’t cause you trouble in the future.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you,” Chou said.

“This is also so I don’t suddenly lose my progress in the middle of these trials, so be careful,” Dr. Takemi said.

* * *

There was a light rain in the evening without much wind. Because of that, Chou had opened up the window to let in some fresh air while she cleaned her room. Morgana tried to help, but it didn’t go well. With cat paws, it wasn’t easy to use things. She could push around a dust cloth, but then the dust would get in her fur. That tasted bad when she cleaned herself. After a while, Morgana sat by the open window and sniffed the air.

A cat form was inconvenient in many ways. It was cute, and she could easily appear unimportant to people. But if she had her human form back, she could be sneaky that way too! Then she could do so much more. Maybe even be a heroine on her own. Though partnering with Chou was nice, partnering with her as a human would be even better.

As she sat there, something came to mind. She recalled meeting with a group of people. Something was wrong with them. Morgana didn’t remember why, but she remembered talking to them. They could be much greater; they could be free. Why did they not try? Humans could do great things, be great people… they were full of potential. So why ignore all that potential and put oneself into a tiny box?

She wanted to save people. But if they didn’t want to be saved, there wasn’t anything to do. They’d just go right back into their tiny box. That was part of why someone like Chou was special, though there were many parts to that.

Chou’s phone then rang, something that distracted Morgana. She talked for a little bit, then hung up. “Sojiro wants me to make sure the sign on the door is turned to ‘Closed’,” she said.

Morgana hopped off the shelf. “Oh, so he doesn’t have any midnight customers wondering why there’s nobody in?”

“Presumably,” she said, heading downstairs.

Morgana followed. “But there are some places that are open all the time, right? For night owls and such. Although you can’t be a night owl because of school.”

“There’s good points to both night and day,” she said. “What’re you coming downstairs for?”

“Just because.”

“Fair enough.”

Although it was only to change the sign, Morgana followed her out. The rain fell outside the awning, making the street slick and shiny. She put a paw out there and got a plop of water right on it. “Ah, that’s cold!” she said, pulling her paw back.

“It must be cold higher up,” Chou said, flipping the sign around.

It made sense. Morgana shook her paw to get the cold off, trying to think of a joke to make it better. However, an awful stench crept into her nose. She backed up, trying to deny an instinct to flee back inside. What was this?

“Heeeey,” some stranger said as he approached them. He stumbled and caught himself on a bike rack by the entrance. “You there, uuuhhh…”

“Gross,” Morgana said, backing up more.

Similarly, Chou’s hands clenched as she tried to not show nervousness. She was fighting off some fear triggered by the stinky man. “We’re closed,” she said, trying to dissuade him.

“Yer aliens!” the man said, pointing at her. “Yer gonna suck the brains of everyone in the neighborhood, ain’t ya? Yer just a hun… a hundurd little guys in a skin suit.”

“Should we start with you?” Chou retorted.

The man held his hands up and backed off. “Yikes, no no no! I beg ya, don’t suck out my brains!” He then hurried off in a crooked fumbling run.

Chou let out a sigh of relief, then said, “Let’s get inside and lock the door before any more weirdos come by.”

“Gladly,” Morgana said, hurrying back inside ahead of her. “Ugh, that man stunk so bad! What was wrong with him?”

“He was drunk,” she explained, shutting the door firmly behind her and making sure it was secure. “That might have been scary.”

“I heard you say that about the man that got you in trouble, but what’s that mean? Being drunk?” Morgana asked.

“He’s had too many alcoholic drinks,” Chou said, starting to check other things in the store. “A lot of people like how alcohol makes them feel, but it inhibits their judgment and makes them more likely to do dumb things. Usually when people say they’re going out drinking, they mean alcohol and getting drunk like that.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” she said. She jumped up on a stool to wait while Chou did her chores. “And it smells awful! It’s like something I was just thinking about, I think.”

“And what’s that?”

She sat down on the stool, curling her tail around her feet. “Well it’s not clear, but I remembered something. There were some people stuck somewhere, like a box? Or maybe a cave. Anyhow, they were stuck and I wanted to help them. But they didn’t want to be helped! I felt mad that they were squandering their potential, but also incredibly sad for the same reason. Was that man like that, I wonder? Stuck in his box and not wanting help?”

“It could be,” Chou said. “Where was this box or cave with the people?”

“I’m not sure,” Morgana said, tilting her ears down.

“Mementos?” Chou suggested.

“Maybe. But one thing’s for sure now. When I become a human again, I am not getting drunk.”

“Good idea,” Chou said, smiling at that. “I was thinking that too. It’ll be hard, though.”

“Why’s that? Is it that common for people to want impaired judgment?”

She nodded. “Everybody expects that when you’re an adult, you’ll go out drinking with friends and coworkers. That idea is everywhere: in TV shows, in movies, in gossip, in people’s daily schedules. So when we stick to our guns and don’t, it’ll seem odd.”

“Does being odd bother you?” Morgana asked.

“Nah, I’d rather be interesting.”

“Good point. Well it’s getting late. Ready for bed?”

“Yeah, let’s get some sleep.”

* * *

5/7

After another day of school, Chou and Morgana made their way to Madarame’s residence in Shibuya. They had already tracked down his Palace as being located here. The house itself was a strange sight in the midst of more normal looking homes and apartments. Covered in bare metal that was rusted in places, it wasn’t even artistically different. It was cobbled together and likely to fall over if one poked it in the wrong spot.

“Isn’t this guy supposed to be a famous artist?” Morgana asked, looking over the house with her. “That place is a dump.”

Chou nodded. “It was something Nakanohara mentioned, that this isn’t his actual home. You always hear about artists being poor, but this is absurd. But maybe it has a good structure and all the rust is for looks.”

“It’s a weird aesthetic, that’s for sure. Well then, let’s see what the Palace looks like.”

“Got it,” she said, taking her phone and navigating them to Madarame’s layer of the Metaverse.

The change was drastic, perhaps even more so than Shujin Academy to a European castle. The sky turned dark with night, leaving huge spotlights to fall upon a golden building surrounded by bushy gardens and a gleaming wall with staggered heights. Outside the walls, a parking lot barricaded by red velvet ropes held a work van and several pricey polished cars. The ropes also held in a long line of shadowy cognitions waiting for a turn to get inside.

“Ah, I recall this place,” Ace said, looking up at the sculpture standing above the entrance. “I came across it while trying to find a Treasure. I couldn’t figure it out at the time, but the Shadows here are the sort we were looking for: tougher than Kamoshida’s but not too tough.”

“It’s an art museum, I would guess from the design,” Joker said.

“Uh, this might be a place where my lack of real world knowledge causes problems,” Ace said. “But you know about it? We should be able to figure it out then.”

“I don’t know a lot about art, but I think I know what to expect,” she said. “We definitely don’t want to go in the front here; that line is not moving.”

“Right, but there’s a good way for thieves to get inside. Check it out and see what I mean.”

After a moment, she saw one part of it: the van was parked right under a low part of the staggered outer wall. They were able to hop onto the van and then onto the wall to look around. Shadows dressed as suited guards were patrolling around the main path up to the front door. However, the Shadows weren’t around the garden path that was lined with trellises and tall sculpted bushes. They had to dodge around the sight of a guard who was sticking to a sitting area, but were able to get onto a shed and then up to an extension of the museum. A line of skylights were up there, including several that were open. On reaching their entrance, Ace pulled out a rope to get in.

They dropped into an exhibit room. Large portraits were lined up along the wall; they had blurry paintings of people on abstract backgrounds that waved slightly. Benches were placed in front of the paintings, with trash bins in the corners of the room and red velvet rope partitions protecting the paintings. “This is definitely an art museum,” Joker said quietly.

“A museum is a place to store and display treasures,” Ace murmured, thinking aloud. “So then…” she nodded and spoke a little louder. “There’s a high chance we’ll have to solve a number of puzzles to get through this Palace. We should be observant; everything here will have some meaning, even if it’s just filling out a scene like the benches and trash bins here.”

“Sure, let’s check out some art,” Joker said.

By each portrait, there was a polished plaque that stated a name and a few dates. Joker brought out her school notebook to start taking down names on the back page. Ace spotted a security measure in the form of infrared trip lines; they were inactive, but good to be aware of. In a neighboring display room, they found a portrait of Nakanohara. In a hallway past there, there was a pair of portraits larger than the others. One was labeled Yusuke Kitagawa; the other was labeled Miyumi Kitagawa.

“So we have that Nakanohara guy in there, and the Yusuke fellow we were told about here,” Ace said. “What do you think of that?”

“These are his students,” Joker said, looking over the list she had. “We were called here on him plagiarizing the works of his students while abusing them. Maybe this is like the voodoo doll we found in the last Palace? It’s a subconscious representation of controlling someone that might have real world effects.”

“Or maybe they’re his treasures that he can display and use as he pleases?” Ace suggested. “Either way, this smells bad. It’s not how people should be seen.”

“Let’s see how the Shadows are and head on,” Joker said. “How’s that?”

“Fine by me.”

The Shadows they found in the halls around the display rooms were different: little winged girls who used fire, elegant icy women who seemed like dancers, and Shadow versions of the Mokoi she’d been using. The hall led around to a lobby area. Despite the long line outside, there were no cognitions around. They dispatched the guards there, then searched the lobby.

“Hey, I found a map,” Ace said, having a pamphlet from a rack nearby. “Lots of exhibits.”

Joker looked over her shoulder at the map. “Any idea where the Treasure is from this?”

“Logically it’s the most secure area,” Ace said, twitching her whiskers against the map. Joker knelt down to take one edge, letting her point to a round display room on an upper floor. “Around here, I believe. Looks like it’ll take a while to get there.”

“That’s to be expected. Let’s check out the chests here.” There were two of them, on opposite ends of the lobby.

“Careful of security and traps with those,” Ace said, closing up the map to follow her over.

One of the chests had a nicer sword for Ace alongside some jewels. The other chest had a ticket and some odd items Joker didn’t recognize. “What’re these?”

“Ooo, those are some hefty healing items,” Ace said. “This Soma will heal you and restore your energy from anything, and this batch of beads are revival items. Now what’s that?”

“A ticket to an art exhibit by Madarame,” Joker said, showing it to her. “If it’s real, the exhibit opens up later this month.”

“We might want to hang onto this,” Ace said. “It could prove useful if we run into a bad obstacle here.”

“All right,” she said, tucking it into her pocket along with the map.

The other stairway from the lobby led to a gated off area, leaving them to take a central path to the back of the museum. Past a darkened hall, they came out to a circular room bathed in golden light. Massive banners hung from an upper level and swayed lightly from fans in the walls. A pair of curving stairs enshrined a tall golden statue that was a spiral with small human figures forming a chain down to a man at the bottom holding his hand up to them. A densely written plaque was on the pedestal. ‘The Spring of Eternal Inspiration- For the endless glory of the master, to continually build upon his magnificence, the students shall offer their ideas for the master to glorify. This shall lead to endless prosperity for all. If the students can no longer provide inspiration, they are no longer worthy of basking in the glorious light that surrounds the master. They shall be trash and left to the fires.’

“This is like Kamoshida and his students, but more willing to let those worthless to him die,” Joker said.

“Well that confirms that he’s a terrible person with a distorted heart,” Ace said. “A worthy target for our skills.”

They found a safe room not far past the Eternal Inspiration statue, letting them take a break so they could keep going. The stairs up were hidden away in a maze of partitions and exhibits, although there were several treasure chests along the way that rewarded searching around. Past the stairs, the infrared trip lines were active. However, there was nearly always a way to slip under or jump over the trip lines. That was something to keep alert of.

The second floor exhibit halls were full of paintings that were more like normal art. But there was something curious: there would be multiples of the same artworks in a row. On seeing seven paintings of fish, Joker noticed something. “These are all only slightly different.”

“Hmm, these paintings?” Ace paused to look over them. “Huh, you’re right. That must mean something.”

“Most people won’t notice the small differences unless the paintings are lined up like this,” someone said. Like with Kamoshida, a ghostly figure of a young man was now with them. He wore stained jeans and a plain t-shirt with a university logo on it, with a sketchbook in his hands. “They don’t know the meaning the artist wanted to portray, nor the amount of resources and practice that are behind each work. It’s a struggle that comes with choosing a life of art.”

“What’s the point of this?” Joker asked.

“Profits,” the demon said, pointing to the signature of ‘Ichiryusu Madarame’. “To a buyer without art training, this is the only thing that matters. These snobs want the best of the best, but they have no sound judgment on what is the best. The actual quality and details of these paintings don’t matter to them. Instead, the signature assures them that it’s valuable and their snobbery ensures that they keep the paintings to themselves and won’t show them to those who would know better.” He chuckled as he disappeared.

“I don’t know if it’s safe to talk with him,” Ace said, turning her ears down.

“I know,” Joker said. “But it gives us insight into how Madarame thinks, which could give us insight into how this Palace works.”

“True, but let’s be careful.”

After wandering around the second floor of exhibits, they discovered a gated off stairway. The map showed that it was the only way up to the third floor. There were no keys on the gate either. “Do we need to get back to that security room?”

“That’d make most sense,” Ace said.

The security office had a number of computers on work desks, with partitions between each. However, only one of the computers was actually on. Joker sat in front of it while Ace hopped onto the desk to watch. The computer was simpler than what she was used to, with the security windows open already. Not even the touchpad worked; she had to use the arrow keys to shift around the windows. There were options to lift the barred gates, turn off infrared trip wires, and turn on cameras. All the options were grayed out.

“We need a password to use this,” Joker said.

“Is that what this is about?” Ace said, holding up a piece of paper. ‘PW- Display# Koi Trio, Lost Forest, Peacock Portrait, Cat on a Fence, Jigsaw City’

“Most likely,” she said, looking over the riddle. “Display number… I know we saw a bunch of that Koi Trio painting; that’s when we met the demon. Looks like we need to check this floor out again.”

A picture that fit the ‘Cat on a Fence’ title was just outside the security room. There were ten of them on both sides of the hall, all slightly different from each other. Checking the plaques, they were labeled 0-9. When Joker looked at them all with Third Eye, the paintings all had identical auras. There was nothing to pick one out from the rest.

“Oh geez,” Ace said after looking them over herself. “Display number, does that mean which of the variants he means to display at that exhibit in Shibuya?”

At the question, the demon reappeared. “The display number is the publicly known version,” he explained. “It’s not always the best version, what an artist would call true beauty. Rather, it is the version that would most appeal to the public. True beauty is fleeting; even art can fade and change. Fleeting things cannot hold their value. Thus, true beauty holds fleeting value and is ultimately useless. But gold is far from fleeting.” It then vanished.

Ace shook her head. “No way, beautiful things are sometimes worth more than gold. Anyhow, I don’t see how we’re supposed to figure this out within here.”

“We have a ticket,” Joker said, taking it out of her pocket to check. “Unless we can change the password, which should require the password itself, it seems we can’t progress until we check out this exhibit.”

“Hmm, when does it open up?”

“The fifteenth, so a little over a week.”

“Well, we’ve made some good progress today,” Ace said. “You feeling good? We could train against the Shadows on this floor.”

That gave her some thought. “Well, remember what the doctor said? Madarame is a cruel man, but he is still an old man. If we fight too many Shadows, he’ll be like I was when I had to fight my apathy. We don’t want to push his health while we’re trying to make him confess to his sins.”

“True,” Ace said. “In that case, leaving now is a good choice too. Want to go?”

Joker nodded. “Sure, let’s get to the safe room and get out.”

“Are you going to leave so soon?” the demon asked, reappearing. “That’s a pity. We just met.”

“We’re doing it to solve the puzzle without using brute force,” Joker said.

“Yeah, we’re smart enough for it!” Ace said.

The demon smirked at that. “Are you? Very well, I’ll wait and see how you do on this level. In the meantime, how about some sage words from my heart?” He flipped open his sketchbook. “When looking for a talented artist, a good sign is that they believe in true beauty and seek to capture it. They do not realize that ‘true beauty’ is merely a buzzword that intrigues others. Such artists, especially the young ones, have little business sense. I managed to be blessed with an artist’s eye and a businessman’s sense. Therefore, the true worth of art and beauty is determined by me.” He then vanished with a chuckle.

“That doesn’t sound fitting of an artist,” Ace said.

“I agree,” Joker said. “It’s also from a demon, so who knows how trustworthy those words are. Let’s go.”

They had gotten through a fair amount of the Palace, so Chou spent the rest of the day studying her Tarot book and cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say thanks y'all for the 51 kudos so far!
> 
> Though since I'm making a note anyhow... we're still following the game progression in a general sense. Madarame is a next logical step, since the progression through that Palace is adaptable to having fewer Phantom Thieves; some of the altered mechanics I'm using come into play with that. The canon progression is clever at points, although I don't like what they did with Ann there (it'd be better if it had been her idea and she'd been given more time since escaping Kamoshida's harassment). Once we get to the third Palace, only having two Thieves starts causing problems.


	21. Protein Lovers

5/8

Ryuji: Hey Chou, what’re you up to?

Chou: Laundry. Why?

Ryuji: Well Ann surprised me by asking to train with me.

Ryuji: Shiho is at a regionals match in the evening, so she wants to go after lunch.

Ryuji: Want to join us at the gym?

Chou: Sure, you don’t mind exercising with girls?

Ryuji: nah, you two are friends.

Ryuji: Looking forward to it, actually!

Chou: Where’s this gym?

Ryuji: In Shibuya, here’s a link to the place.

Ryuji: no membership fees, just pay per visit. Good worth if you’re not making regular gym visits.

Chou: Sounds good, meet you guys at one?

Ryuji: Sure, that’s when we’ll be there.

Ryuji: later!

Chou: Later gator.

…

Chou: I hear you’re going to work out today.

Ann: Oh yeah, you coming?

Chou: Sure.

Ann: Great! I know Ryuji is a good guy, but it’ll be better to have another girl along.

Ann: I talked with a manager at the agency about things other models do for the job.

Ann: I’ll save my main rant for later; you should hear it in person.

Chou: Something to look forward to.

Ann: In that case, I’ll try to be entertaining ;)

Ann: Working out seemed like a good place to start.

Ann: I don’t mind gym class, just don’t look forward to it like Shiho and Ryuji.

Chou: Shiho has a regionals match this evening, right?

Ann: Yeah!

Ann: Wanna come with for that too? There’s an entry fee, but it’s a fraction of what a professional sports match would be.

Chou: Sure, to support Shiho and the team.

Ann: Today’s going to be a lot of fun, I know it!

* * *

After lunch and some time to let that settle, the three of them met up at the Protein Lover’s Gym in Shibuya. The noise of Central Street faded away despite being not that far away. “It seems kind of shady, being out here in a dark alley like this,” Ann said.

“Duh, there’s tons of shade right around here,” Ryuji said, then laughed at his joke.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ann said, not impressed.

“I think you mean seedy?” Chou said.

“That sounds more accurate,” Ann said. She glanced around warily. “It’s not a place to go on your own.”

“Well at least give it a try while we’re all here,” Ryuji said, sounding sheepish for not having thought of that. “It’s worked out for me working out.”

“For today, but I’m not sure I’d come back,” Ann said.

They went in, finding a bored high schooler behind the desk reading a book. A familiar bored high schooler. “Welcome, the owner’s out today,” he started to say, then looked at them. “Oh, Chou? And Ann?”

“Yeah, hi,” Ann said, smiling but not recognizing him.

“Hi Seong,” Chou said. “I thought you worked at a beef bowl shop.”

“Well I’m working here too,” Seong said. “Err, but I don’t know any of this equipment, so if there’s any problems, it’ll have to wait until the owner gets back. Anything that’s available is available to use; showers and restrooms are over there. And, uh, don’t hurt yourself.”

“Sure, I know what to do,” Ryuji said.

Once they changed, they met up by the treadmills where some practice mats were. Ann seemed to have pushed her uneasiness about the place aside. “I want to be a better model, more confidant about it. So I’m going to start acting like one! That means working out and diets.” She clenched a fist in the air to show her determination.

“I hope you’re being careful about this,” Ryuji said. “Mixing a new diet and workout routine is a good way to exhaust yourself.”

“I am,” Ann said. “I’m going to wait on the diets because the ones I was told about sound ridiculous. No meat, no breads, no sugars, no fats; they all cut out different things, or multiple things. They sound just plain awful.”

Ryuji made a face on hearing the diets. “You don’t want to do no meats if you’re working out. The protein is important for building muscles and I don’t know if plant proteins can fully replace that.”

“Well I don’t want to be big and muscular,” Ann said. “I just need to keep slim.”

“You’re already slim,” Chou said.

Ryuji gave a teasing smile. “Yeah, but she eats enough sweets that she’d get chunky if she didn’t watch herself.”

“Hey, you don’t have to point that out,” Ann said, shaking her head. “Anyhow, looking healthy is a good thing along with being slim, so that’s what I’m here for!”

“Let’s not overdo this,” Ryuji said. “I don’t know how you models focus on specific looks, so we’ll just aim for overall health. Warm-up exercises first, though, to loosen up your muscles.”

Ann started out with plenty of energy, throwing herself fully into the exercises. But she wore out after fifteen minutes, unlike them as they paced themselves. Ann ended up sitting to rest while Ryuji had Chou demonstrate how to do weight training with a bench weight. That was tough, but it seemed like a good thing to be doing. While some things could be bluffed by dream logic, feeling stronger could make her stronger in the Metaverse.

“So this is something you have to make a habit, huh?” Ann asked, resting her head on her hands. “But it would be better for me.”

Ryuji nodded. “Yeah, it’s best to build up your time and effort over a while, like five minutes to start with and adding five more once a week until you’re doing thirty minute sessions. You might be able to get away with jogging as your exercise; that ought to keep you in good shape. Maybe some weights to build your arms a little too.”

“That would make sense,” Ann said, flexing her arm a little. “Do I need to use these barbells for weight training?”

Ryuji put a hand to his chin. “Well I’ve read some blogs about using other things for weights. I’d have to look those up again to be sure.”

“That’d be handy cause I’m not sure about coming to a gym just for weight training if I can jog wherever,” Ann said.

“Makes sense if you could do that on your own,” Chou said.

At that point, someone else came into the room. The boy soon waved over to them. “Hey there, Sakamoto-kun! It’s been a while.”

“Oh, hey Ikeda-sempai,” Ryuji said. “How’ve you been doing?”

“Just fine, got into a nice college,” he said. “How about you? Back to running yet?”

“Can I try that now?” Ann asked her, since the two boys were talking.

Ryuji answered Ikeda, “I’m working at it; a bit hard without the team around.”

“Sure,” Chou said, getting up off the bench press and recalling what Ryuji had said about spotting someone else.

Meanwhile, Ikeda said, “Yeah, but isn’t the team getting back together? I heard about it a couple days ago.”

“Sure, but I’m not sure they’d welcome me back,” Ryuji said.

“I know what happened, but you’ve always had a lot of positive spirit,” Ikeda said. “They could use someone like you around.” The boys kept talking for a while.

But Chou had to focus on helping Ann. “Is this a good weight? Don’t push yourself too much.”

“Yeah, this should be fine,” she said, gripping the bar. Chou guided her to put it back in the rack so she could adjust her grip to a better hold.

“Be careful to keep things straight,” Chou said, letting her try.

Eventually, Ikeda went over to run on a treadmill. Ryuji came back to them, an irritated look on his face. But he immediately checked how Ann was doing with lifting the barbell. “You getting the hang of it?” he asked, coming to Ann’s other side.

“S-sure, I got it,” Ann said, setting the barbell back in place. “Phew, that’s more work than I expected.”

“She lifted it five times,” Chou said.

“Not bad, but you might want to try lighter weights next time, to not wear out your arms,” Ryuji said.

“Maybe,” she said, sitting up and rubbing her arms. “But I need to get used to this.”

“You can do it,” Chou said. “Oh yeah, Ryuji? Did he say something to annoy you?”

“Oh, nothing against Ikeda-sempai,” Ryuji said, annoyed at the reminder. “We got to talking about the Shujin track team and how it’s coming back. Somehow, he’s gotten information I hadn’t heard. You know who got put as coach? Yamauchi.”

“Him?” Ann asked, the look on her face clearly saying that she did not like this person either. “I know he knew what was going on, but he always defended Kamoshida and thought he was the greatest teacher around.”

Ryuji nodded. “Yeah, he was like a mini-Kamoshida around the track team, echoing him all the time. Maybe he’s not as bad, but he was always kissing up to Kamoshida and the principal. Why the hell would he be interested in bringing the team back together? He doesn’t know anything about the sport.”

“So the team’s going to get really bad instruction now?” Chou asked.

“They’re going to get next to nothing,” Ryuji said, tapping his foot. “I want to help the guys out, but how?”

“What about that manager position you talked about before?” Chou suggested.

Ann nodded. “Yeah, when it comes to sports, you really know your stuff. You can coach the guys from the side if Yamauchi isn’t going to.”

“Maybe, at least help out any new guys who aren’t holding grudges against me yet,” he said. “I’ll think it over; I just don’t want to leave them still in a bad spot, whatever they think of me.”

They still had a few hours before they needed to go catch Shiho’s game. After some discussion, they went to the arcade where Chou played some Gun About and Ann and Ryuji surprisingly got into a fighting game together. They kept teasing each other and laughing throughout their matches. It was almost a pity to give it up in time to catch the train over to the match.

If school was more like this, with people accepting her and willing to have fun, she’d feel a lot better about being where she was.

* * *

The energy in the gymnasium was electric; the ball seemed blazing at times being rallied back and forth. While the other school’s coach had complimented them on having the spirit to carry on, they were not going to go easy on them. That was fine. The Shujin students would show that they were strong enough to keep going. With that spirit, they won another game towards reaching Nationals.

On getting back to the locker room, Shiho took out her phone to text Ann.

Shiho: Hey, is Chou with you?

Ann: Yeah, her and Ryuji. Wanna catch dinner with us?

Shiho: Sure, except one thing which you can’t tell Chou.

Ann: Really now?

Shiho: I found out today that Yuuki has a huge crush on her.

Ann: REALLY NOW?

Shiho: Really really.

Shiho: he’s kinda nerdy, but he works hard and seems like a good guy.

Shiho: So, I’ll get Yuuki over there, and let’s let them go out together. See if he gets up the nerve to ask about dating.

Ann: Alright!

Ann: hope we can pull this off.

Shiho: Yeah.

Shiho: be out in a few.

After taking a quick shower and putting on her casual clothes, Shiho looked around the area to figure out where her target was. Yuuki was over talking with the other school’s coach and Shujin’s teacher adviser; Yuuki was taking care of a lot of things that a team’s coach would, all to make sure they got games scheduled and the background business taken care of. Hoping that he wasn’t busy with that tonight, she waited until she could wave him down and get his attention.

“Oh, Shiho, is something the matter?” Yuuki asked, coming over.

“Not really, I was just going to get dinner with Ann,” Shiho said. “But you know what? Chou came to watch us today too.”

“R-really?” Yuuki asked, immediately twice as interested.

“Her and Ryuji,” she said. “If you want to hang out with her tonight, you can come over with me. Don’t worry, we’ll make up an excuse so you can leave with just her.”

“Uh, well this school is taking care of most things since it’s their gym,” he said. “Sure, let me get my things… thanks Shiho.”

“No problem,” Shiho said with a smile.

Maybe this would help both of them; Shiho hoped it worked out well.

* * *

“It’d be a lot easier to keep clean if our room didn’t get so dusty,” Morgana said to herself, pausing in her cleaning. She sneezed. “I should ask her to clean again.”

Wanting to get some fresher air, she headed down the stairs. Chou had left to work out with her friends and go to one of Shiho’s games today. Morgana would have normally been interested. However, yesterday’s Palace excursion had been tougher on her than she liked to admit. A good long nap had helped with that physically. But her mind still pondered over things.

Chou’s powers were constantly evolving with her capability to use multiple Personas. She even had some mid-tier attack magic already, fast catching up to where Morgana had been. Plus, there was that connection power she had to make people acknowledge the consequences of their sins. It was as much a curse as it was a useful power.

But Morgana’s powers had not changed much since they started working together. Sure, she was stronger now. There was the potential to change her spells to more powerful forms, if she could figure out how to make that change. But until she could, it felt like she might slow Chou down soon. Chou was quick-witted; she was starting to understand both worlds, which was better than Morgana still being unsure of some things in this world. Once Chou grasped how to use one world to affect the other, she might do better as Joker alone than Joker with Ace.

What was she going to do if she became a load rather than a guide?

Trying to put that anxiety out of mind, Morgana peeked into Leblanc itself. More customers would come in as dinner time for humans approached. As a cat in form, she wasn’t to be in the cafe for long. But she was feeling a little bored with waiting (and a little anxious, and lonely). She slipped in until she could see Sojiro behind the counter. “Hi, hope you don’t mind me here,” she said even though he wouldn’t understand.

“Oh, you’re awake now,” Sojiro said, looking down at her. “Keep out of the kitchen.” He even pointed to the line where the flooring changed.

“Got it, Boss,” she said.

“You’re such a chatty cat,” Sojiro said glancing at the door. No one was in at the moment. He then came over to pet her; his hands smelled of cigarettes, coffee, spice, and hand soap. “She seemed worried about you, but I bet you just wanted a break from riding around in that bag.”

“The bag’s not too bad,” Morgana said. “I can see the world with her! But I’m not any closer to understanding it.”

“She’s taking good care of you, despite packing you around everywhere with her,” he said, thinking aloud. “Seems to be responsible too, if something of a busy bee with something always going on. Normal for a teenage girl, I suppose.”

“She’s not normal, she’s exceptional,” she said, looking down at her white paws. “She’s going to be very hard to match if she starts getting ahead of me.”

After a moment, Sojiro carefully got a grip on her and picked her up to hold against his chest. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said.

“Uh, as long as you’re careful,” Morgana said, getting a deeper whiff of his scent. It wasn’t bad, actually. He wasn’t a bad man.

“I wonder if it’s safe to introduce Chou to Futaba,” Sojiro said, petting her while getting back to his train of thought.

“Futaba who?” Morgana asked. Not that he could understand her to answer. But maybe, if she willed it…

“I just want something to change with Futaba, some improvement,” he said quietly. Whoever this was, thoughts of them were troubling him. “A friend might help, if she would even talk with her. Chou seems to have cheered up just having things to do; she seems all right, and yet… I just can’t be sure.”

Morgana started to relax and purr, hoping to help him (and also because his pets felt good). “Well, I suppose there’s some benefits to being a cat. But if I was human, I might be able to help you with this Futaba, and help you trust Chou more.”

But she was currently a cat, so letting him hold her had to do for now.

* * *

Shiho said that Yuuki had something to talk with her about. From the way Yuuki was a bundle of nerves that had trouble looking at her without getting wound up in what to say, Chou wondered if he had a crush on her. He was acting like some of the guys last year. Should she respond to him, agree to date him? Or pretend like she didn’t notice, as before? It had been fun last year.

But this was different. She considered it as they headed over to the diner in Shibuya. Last year, it had been some normal guys who could take being let down. In the end, she’d annoyed and angered them by drawing things out. Yuuki wasn’t like them. He had tried to kill himself in the past month. While he said he didn’t remember it, the injuries might still be affecting him. It might be better to pretend not to notice unless he brought it up, then find a way to stick to being friends.

“How’s being a team manager?” Chou asked as they were waiting on their food.

“It’s not too bad,” Yuuki said. “I’m pretty good at organizing things, so taking care of schedules is easy. It’s tougher trying to watch a match and figure out when to sub people in and out. While you don’t want people to get tired out, you also have to think about how the various people of the team work together. You hope they can put things aside for a match, but it’s a serious weakness of the team if they don’t.”

“Seems like you need to know the team well,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ve been watching the others during practices, so I’m getting the hang of who plays well with whom. But I’ll need to really be on top of it as we keep playing. Kamoshida could make snap decisions on that kind of thing.”

“He had lots of experience,” Chou said. “You can get there.”

“If I keep doing this, I’d want to be a far better coach to my team,” Yuuki said. “But I don’t know. I also like web design; computer skills are really valuable and I could get a nice career out of it. Actually, here, check this out.” He brought out his phone and brought up a web page to show her.

It was called ‘The Phantom Aficionado Site’. The colors and designs were familiar; they were taken from her original design of the calling card. “Is this about those phantom thieves?” she asked.

“Right,” he said, putting his phone on the table to focus on other parts of the site. “I’m really grateful to them for what they did with Kamoshida. They gave a lot of people a second chance, a better shot at a good life now rather than enduring things until later. While there is a lot of talk about them online, there wasn’t one central place for that talk. At least, until this site showed up. I was thinking of doing the same kind of thing myself, but looks like someone else did first. But whoever they are, their site could use a lot of work from someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve PM’ed the site owner to ask if they want some assistance.”

“That’s cool but aren’t you busy with the team?” Chou asked. Was this a case of busying himself with many things in order to ignore his own problems?

Yuuki scratched his head. “I guess it was an impulse at first. But the posts so far have been positive and I really want to do something for the phantom thieves. People at school are already talking about the site. I actually know someone who volunteered to help moderate since they’re allowing for anonymous posts, in hopes that posting about their problems without being identified helps give other victims the courage to find real help. There’s been some good stories so far, including those that aren’t from Shujin.”

“Really?” Chou asked, acting surprised.

“The phantom thieves have been doing other things too,” Yuuki said, shifting through sub-menus to a part that described the request ritual. “It’s been recent, but there’s rumors going around about a way to change another person’s heart. You use your phone to send an email to yourself, with the name of the person whose heart you want to change and the reason they need a change of heart, like their sins. When you send it, it’ll vanish if the trick worked. And these phantom thieves can change their hearts!”

“Has that been happening?” she asked.

He nodded and pointed out a story that she quickly recognized as being from Nakanohara’s ex-girlfriend. “Yes, this woman made a request because her ex kept stalking her because he didn’t want to break up with her. But then he apologized and agreed to keep his distance all of a sudden. And while they don’t give names, there’s a post further down that seems to be from her ex, saying that he remembers dreaming of the phantom thieves and how they told him to be a better man. And now he feels inspired to do just that, all because they didn’t treat him as a criminal. They treated him as someone who’d made a mistake and could do better.”

“Huh, so they made Kamoshida grovel but made this man realize he could do better before he got that bad,” Chou said.

“That’s what it sounds like,” Yuuki said. “They’re really heroes of justice.”

“They do seem amazing,” she said, keeping any smugness to herself.

“I want to help them out and support them too,” he said, fiddling with his phone. “But this site is clumsy to navigate. It needs to be organized better, with vital information like the ritual easier to find. And it needs better security; I can tell this was made with a common template, so the holes are well known. See, I already know how to help the site out, if they’ll let me. Do you think the thieves can see this?”

“I’d be surprised if they couldn’t,” Chou said. “Even those who lurk in the shadows would want to know the effects of their actions.”

“True,” he said. “Then we should keep this site going, to continue spreading the word of the phantom thieves and let them hear their feedback. It doesn’t seem like much, but maybe it’ll be important someday.”

Even as they kept talking about the Phantom Aficionado site and other things, Yuuki didn’t mention how he felt about her. Chou eventually asked him, “How’s your doctor visits going?”

“All right,” he said, probably not wanting to go into detail. “I’ve been having some headaches and stuff; the doc says to avoid too much stress. But this is a really important time for the team, so I need to do my part. Everyone’s enthusiastic about doing theirs and some have even been helping me with my tasks, so I’ll be fine.”

“Well be sure to take good care of yourself so you get back to normal sooner,” Chou said. “I’ll be around as your friend if you need some help.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he said, smiling and trying to hide some disappointment.

It made her feel bad, but this was for the best, for both of them. She didn’t mind supporting him as a friend; he needed one and more would be better. But if he asked her out? Chou wasn’t sure she could handle that right now, not with her activities as Joker also on her plate. Maybe later when Yuuki was recovered and more certain of himself, then maybe she’d consider him as a boyfriend. Maybe; this wasn’t the time.

When she got back to Leblanc, Morgana was downstairs with Sojiro. “Hope she hasn’t been trouble,” Chou said.

“I’ve been perfectly not trouble,” Morgana joked, coming over to her.

“No, she listens surprisingly well,” Sojiro said. “How was your day?”

“Pretty good.”

Once she helped Sojiro close up shop, she and Morgana headed upstairs. “I heard something interesting today,” Morgana said.

“Oh yeah?” Chou asked, taking out a rag to start doing some dusting. “What’s that?”

“There’s somebody that Sojiro is thinking of introducing you to,” she said. “But he’s not sure about you meeting up with this Futaba person. She seems important to him.”

“That’s interesting,” she said. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t ask. But it may be something to keep in mind. So what’d you do today?”

“Lifted weights and talked to people,” Chou said, declining to explain more to tease her. “Oh, and we’ve got a fansite now.”

“A what?” she asked, causing Chou to go to the Phantom Aficionado site to show her. “Oh, awesome! Now we can keep track of what people are saying about us! But we’ve got to stay silent even if we watch this web page thingy.”

Chou nodded. “Of course. We’re phantom thieves, those who seek Treasures and justice from the shadows.”

Another week to go until they could make progress on their current target…

* * *

‘Well it turns out I have one friend who’s a magazine model and another friend who’s a potential track star. And another friend who’s becoming a volleyball star, so somehow I’ve gotten in with a crowd of mostly jocks and a beauty queen this time. Ann, Ryuji, and I all worked out together, discussing fitness and sports. That’s unusual for me, but I’m learning all kinds of useful things from them.

Actually, Ann’s not pompous enough to be called a queen. She’s really nice and is gorgeous enough to get by as a model without having worked out before. But she’s trying harder now, so she’s sure to be amazing. I just hope she doesn’t go overboard with those diets she was talking about. She does say they sound crazy, but there could be a lot of pressure for her to do them anyhow.

The Shujin team won their volleyball match tonight, so they’re doing well. Although I discovered that their student manager has a crush on me. He’s one of those cute bashful guys; he helped me find a good computer the other day. But I don’t know about dating him right now. It’s too soon after I transferred. I think I was able to get across that I just want friends for now since he didn’t ask me straight out for a date. But I also think Shiho and probably Ann know about Yuuki’s crush too, so they might try to do something.

I hope you don’t mind reading this. Then again, you are reading the journal of a teenage girl, so you probably expect it. You do have to know what I’m doing. I’m kinda tired tonight, but I’ll try not to write too many embarrassing things in the future.’

* * *

5/9

A voice came out of the crowd of students in the halls. “Hey, Shiho.”

She paused on her way to her classroom. “Oh, good morning Yuuki! How’d things go yesterday evening?”

“That,” he shrugged. “I didn’t get around to saying anything I meant to and she said she thinks of me as a friend. But maybe I just need to prove myself to her?”

“That could be,” Shiho said. “She’s only been around for a month, after all. I can talk with her and see if there’s anything more she thinks about you.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Yuuki said. “Anyhow, I was going to pass on a message later over the team board, but the school is going ahead with hiring a counselor to help those of us affected by Kamoshida. The principal hopes they can be around in a week; we’ll all be required to meet with the counselor when they’re here.”

“That’s fine,” Shiho said. “I’m glad they’re helping out.” Her mother had worried about how things would look to others if they sent her to a therapist. But if there was going to be one at the school and everyone on the team was asked to visit, it wouldn’t be mistaken for something shameful.

At lunch, she met up with her friends as usual. “You guys should hear that they are going to hire a counselor to help us,” Shiho said. “They’re already having the whole volleyball team meet with them at least a few times, but you two should also go.”

“I guess if there’s others going, it won’t be too bad,” Ryuji said.

“There are some things I’d like to ask somebody who knows how to handle sexual harassment,” Ann said. “It’ll be useful if I continue on as a model.”

“You’re still thinking over that?” Chou asked. She was wearing uniform pants again, since the loophole had yet to be patched. “You seemed more serious about it yesterday.”

“I really want to continue,” she said, frowning over her own indecision. “I just keep thinking over what I’d do if I ended up with an obsessed fan, or anyone like Kamoshida. A counselor would be useful just to answer some questions.”

“I hope they can help everyone move on,” Shiho said.

Later after school, she met up with Ann to study some more. They decided to bake cookies by following a recipe in English. “ _And this much of the sugar?”_ she asked.

Ann nodded. “ _Yup, you got it. And what spices?_ ”

That word… spices? “Cinnamon and vanilla?” she asked.

“Right,” Ann said. “So what do we do with the cinnamon and sugar?”

Shiho looked back over the recipe. “It… it gets split up. Some sugar and cinnamon goes in the cookie dough. The rest is kept aside to roll the cookies in before shaping them.”

“Right! You’re getting better at this.” She beamed at her. “ _It’s more fun when I have people I can talk to well in both languages._ ”

Shiho smiled back. “ _Sure, it’s like the secret codes kids come up with, but more useful. I’m getting better at English because I get to talk to you with it._ ”

“ _We should have an English-talking session of lunch because Chou is decent at it too_ ,” she said, then chuckled. “Though we may lose Ryuji trying to do that.”

“Or maybe we’ll make him learn it, by not telling him we’re doing so,” Shiho said.

“Sometimes you have evil ideas; I like it! Oh yeah, speaking of Chou, how did her going out with Yuuki end up?”

“Not too good, since she doesn’t seem to be interested in dating him yet. But I told him not to lose hope!”

After baking the cookies, they watched a few shows in English to keep with the studying. Ms. Chouno wasn’t a bad teacher by any means, but these sessions were more enjoyable. Maybe it was because of doing more interesting and practical things? Or, maybe it was because of getting to spend a lot of time with Ann? She was a beautiful and fun girl.

She wasn’t sure of it, but Shiho decided she might consider it later.


	22. Reverse King of Pentacles; Master of Japanese Art

5/9

Her friends were busy after school was done, but Chou’s only plans for the day were applying for that beef bowl job and trying it out. As Seong was absent during school, she couldn’t ask any more questions of him about it. But that left her with an open afternoon since the part-time position was evenings only. On arriving in Shibuya, she checked the ticket she had and went to the address listed. While the Madarame exhibit wasn’t there yet, Chou hoped that she could glance around. Maybe even peek inside if whatever exhibit they had now was free or relatively cheap.

She shifted her shoulder to make sure she got Morgana’s attention. “This is the place where the exhibit will be,” she said quietly.

“Is it?” Morgana put her paws on Chou’s shoulder but didn’t pop out as normal. “There’s a security camera right here.”

“I noticed,” she said. “But what’s really suspicious about a girl with a cat in her bag? As long as we don’t linger too long.”

She then came out to take a look. “I hope that’s the case. So this is where we’ll come to look at paintings, then.”

Chou nodded and pointed out the board she was standing in front of. It had lots of postings for current and future exhibits, including a large poster for the upcoming Madarame exhibit. As the advertisement, it used the peacock portrait as a display sample. Which meant… “This should be the display copy we need to know for this painting. I should buy a sketchbook for this; it might prove useful for more than just this puzzle.”

“Can’t you use your phone’s camera to get the right one?” Morgana asked.

She shook her head. “Can’t. The poster says right there, no cameras or photography. But, it does allow for sketching in the exhibits. That guy said my technical drawing skills are fine, so I could get away with it.”

“But probably no pets allowed, huh? Even though I’m not a pet, they’ll see me as one and the sketching would take you a while.”

Chou glanced over at her and reached up to pet her head. “Will you be okay on your own around Shibuya?”

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “I might do some of my own investigating around Madarame’s house.”

That reminded her of something. “If you do that, do you mind if we went back to the cat store and got a microchip on your collar? That way, if we go investigating separate things, I can find you with my phone.”

She lowered herself partly into the bag. “Aw, I like my privacy. Joking, of course. In all seriousness, that’s probably a good idea. I’m sure I could find you in this crowd; you’ve got a distinct aura even when you’re hiding it, plus you smell like Leblanc.”

“Really?” she asked.

“What’s so bad about that? It’s a nice smell?”

Chou sighed. “It is a nice smell, but not necessarily what a person wants to smell like all the time. Anyhow, I was hoping we’d get a look inside, but they’re closed down this week for cleaning and setting up this exhibit. We’ll go by to get that microchip, then find something to occupy ourselves with until evening.”

On the way over to the cat store, she got the feeling that someone was following her. There were so many people here in Shibuya, so it might not be the case. Chou thought she had gotten used to the crowds. Or maybe some awareness through Third Eye was trying to alert her? She slowed down in walking and tried sensing around her. There was someone with his attention on her, solely on her. Strangely, it didn’t feel dangerous once she paid attention. There was an innocence to it; this person wasn’t aware that he might cause problems following her.

He was moving quicker to catch up. She went back to walking quickly and got to The Cat’s Meow before he caught up. Once she was inside, he didn’t seem sure of coming in after her. The clerk greeted her. “Good afternoon. May we help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking to get a microchip on my cat’s collar,” she said. “She’s with me.”

“Sure, it won’t take long.” The longest part was the staff finding the right tool to secure it inside the yellow collar; the app took a couple minutes to download. It cost a bit more than she expected, but the clerk gave her a store coupon for choosing to protect her pet, as they put it.

The boy who’d been following her was waiting outside the store. He was tall and thin enough to seem frail; his deep blue hair added to that impression. “Excuse me,” he said, “but you are an enigma.”

“I am?” she asked, curious about what he might be thinking.

He looked over her as if appraising her. “You are a girl, right?” When she nodded, he seemed satisfied with getting it right. “But from certain angles, you look like a boy. It’s quite the interesting visual illusion.”

“Thanks, I’ve been working on doing that intentionally instead of accidentally,” Chou said.

“It would be an unusual skill,” he said.

“Well sorry, but I don’t know how to make it work for a guy,” she said. “I’m sure there’s people who could teach you.”

“Oh, that’s not my intention,” he said, not embarrassed about it. “I was wondering if I could paint your portrait, since it would be a challenge to capture your androgynous appearance in a way to puzzle others.”

Was this someone connected to Madarame? Shifting her glasses, she said, “I always enjoy a challenge, even supporting others taking them. But I don’t know who you are.”

That embarrassed him. “Oh, I apologize.” He bowed. “I am Yusuke Kitagawa, a student of Ichiryusai Madarame.”

This could be a lucky break. “I see. I’m Chou Amamiya, a student at Shujin Academy. What would I need to do for your painting?”

“Actually, we should discuss this with Sensei,” Yusuke said. “Come, he should still be at the museum.”

“All right,” she said, following him back down Central Street.

“Oo, we get to meet Madarame?” Morgana said in her bag as they walked. “This could be quite useful!”

Even if they’d have to be careful with the meeting, it could give them more insight into how to interpret his Palace. Kamoshida could be figured out based on what her friends said about him. But other than Yusuke now, she had no connection to Madarame. She needed to make sure she didn’t get too strong of a connection and make others suspicious of her.

But his Palace had puzzles, so meeting him had to be useful.

* * *

He didn’t have to supervise setting up the exhibit; the museum staff could handle it just fine. They were used to being given the paintings to set up how they pleased. But Madarame wanted his exhibits to be at their best. He walked around the exhibit being taken down to discuss with the curator how everything should be arranged. Yusuke had wandered off while they’d been talking outside. From the look on his face, something had caught his artistic eye. That was fine, although he’d have to figure out where the boy had wandered off to again.

To maximize profits, they should get as many visitors as possible. That meant encouraging people to move through quickly. However, art museums encouraged visitors to relax and admire the art on display. It was what the visitors expected. Therefore, some concessions to relaxing had to be made. Having the exhibit open for two weeks should counter that. It was limited, which would pressure people to see a temporary event while giving those who came the chance to relax and soak in the art. With the added media hype and the fame of his name, it was a winning formula.

While the curator was away to take a call, Yusuke came back with someone. “Sensei! I’m sorry for leaving, but I’ve found the subject I was looking for. This is Amamiya-san; she’s something of an enigma, don’t you agree?”

That was a girl? Madarame had thought she was a boy as she was wearing a school uniform with pants. But on looking closer, it was apparent that she was indeed a girl. The evidence was just well hidden with her blazer and the pants. “Yes, I see what you mean. And I apologize, young miss; Yusuke here doesn’t have tact often.”

Yusuke flinched at that. But the girl shrugged. “It’s okay, I’ve met worse. He asked me to be his model and I just wanted to know what that would entail.”

“That’s understandable,” Madarame said. “How much do you know of art?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Took a few classes in school when required and I have a habit of doodling in place of notes.”

That was an interesting sign, compulsive doodling. Could she be a potential student? He could use another since Yusuke was the only one in the atelier now. But it was best not to be hasty. “For a painting model, you’ll need to stay still in one pose for him to work on his piece. It takes a certain endurance to do so, but we’ll set a time period you’re comfortable staying like that, say ten minuets or half an hour depending on the composition he designs. Many artists also use live nude models for certain subjects, but given he’s after an androgynous appearance, that shouldn’t be necessary and in fact would be counterproductive.”

“All right, that sounds fine,” Amamiya said. She was surprisingly laid back for a girl; she barely reacted to the talk of nudity.

“Great, thank you so much!” Yusuke said, eager for this.

“As his teacher, I’ll see about paying you for the modeling,” Madarame said. “Although I’m curious. Even if you don’t know much about art, do you enjoy your doodles? Would you consider pursing art?”

“Maybe,” she said, with a practiced neutral tone. It’d take more than a few questions to gauge her true interests. “It can be fun.”

“May I see some of your drawings?” he asked. Interest from him could trigger interest from her. And surely she had at least heard his name.

“Sure, if you want,” she said, taking her bag off her shoulder to bring out a notebook and open it to a random page. After a moment, she nodded. “These are history notes, about how laws created centuries ago still affect Japan today.”

There wasn’t much on the page that indicated the subject to him, just a few scattered words and dates. There was an intricate looking drawing of a tea set with differing pictures that could indicate the information she was talking about. Other unrelated doodles were scattered around the page thoughtlessly. While more creative aspects like composition and visual balance were lacking, the technical aspects of the drawing were impressive for a high schooler. The shading was smooth and the lines were steady; it was clear that she was drawing what was intended. She was promising as an artist as long as she got more instructions.

“You could do quite well if you focused on learning about art,” Madarame said, indicating the tea set in particular. “This is promising for an unstudied drawing, but you’d need more dedicated practice and training to pursue a life of art. If you’re interested, I can help you get started.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, looking worried on hearing that. “But my situation is complicated, so it could be trouble for you to get involved.”

“Is that a problem for you?” he asked, acting kindly for her.

“Yes, but there’s not much to be done for it.” She was in some kind of trouble, something that could be taken advantage of. “Actually, I’m new to the area. Do you know where I could pick up a good sketchbook? I was thinking of getting one.”

He gave her the location of an art store he preferred, as well as the address of his atelier so that she could model for Yusuke. Then he let them exchange contact information to arrange sessions. Once she had left, Madarame asked, “Did you see her drawings? They were amateurish, but nice.”

“Yes, I noticed that myself,” Yusuke said. “Were you thinking of having her join us?”

“If we can convince her,” Madarame said. “Be nice to her and try to get her interested in art. When she has some interest, have her speak to me again and we’ll see what we can do.”

He should also check more student exhibits to find a couple more apprentices at least. Yusuke was a brilliant artist, but one student alone was not cutting it. While Amamiya was promising, she would take a lot of instruction to be good enough for him. She was a long term investment. He needed a student who was already good to get some new artworks, or else people might suspect what was going on.

“Sensei, is this your list for what is going to be here?” Yusuke asked, checking a list that had been posted on the wall.

“Yes, I had to give them dimensions on the pieces so they had plenty of space without wasting any,” Madarame said, carefully glancing at him.

Yusuke was worried out of shame, as expected. “Are you sure about having some of these up here? I mean, I… they’re not as good as some others that aren’t in the show.”

“It’ll be fine, there needs to be a variety,” he said, putting a reassuring tone on it. “There’s bound to be some that aren’t as interesting to the public as others; that’s how things always are. Similarly, there are periods of slumps or lesser works in the life of any artist. One must not look away from such things, but present a whole to show everything an artist is about. I just need to find my own great inspiration again as you have found one today.”

“I, I see,” he said, putting his hand to his chin and trying to hide the disappointment he had in himself. Yusuke was his and would always be his; this trouble would fuel his works and no one outside them would think they were anything but a teacher and pupil. “I’ll do my best on that portrait; I will make you proud.”

“Then you’d best give it your all,” Madarame said, smiling and patting his shoulder.

* * *

Madarame was old, with thin pale hair and wrinkles. He dressed traditionally, albeit with cheap looking brown and gray clothes. While he seemed nice, his Palace suggested that the niceness was a facade. It was likely a tool too by Chou’s guess, as were his choice of clothes. When she acted with a moment of weakness, he acted like he was ready to pounce and take advantage. But he was holding off; Madarame was patient too.

Chou could play a long game just the same. She got some dinner at the diner, then headed to the beef bowl shop as she had talked with earlier. There, a manager met with her. “You’ve applied at a good time; we’re short on workers and you’ll be on your own for tonight. Sorry about that, but one of our regulars is sick and I haven’t been able to get anyone else.” He didn’t sound sorry about it. Rather, he was more at the end of his rope with this situation.

Then it was better not to provoke him even if this was an awful introduction to the job. “I’ll do my best. What am I going to be doing?”

“Making sales and putting the beef bowls together,” he said. “Ask the employee who’s still on the clock out there; it’s simple stuff since everything’s premade. I’ll be back in a few hours to close up.”

And without much more ado, she was sent out to the front line to learn on the go. The employee there, weary and not in the mood to give precise directions, showed her the cheat sheets under the counter to indicate what things went in which bowl as well as how to work the register. Then she was left on her own for four hours when a great many customers were coming and going for a quick meal. Even when it got past what she thought of as normal meal times, there were still customers around until about fifteen minutes to the end of her shift.

Once the last one left, Morgana crept in from the office in back. “Man, that looked like one crazy job,” she said.

“I couldn’t stop one moment that whole time,” Chou said, considering cleaning the counter. But should she bother? She wasn’t told to do so and this was a rude introduction for a new worker. “No wonder Seong comes into class looking so tired.”

Morgana nodded. “I wanted to come offer some encouragement, but there were just too many people around. I do have to be careful in places like this, even if I remain unseen.”

“Thanks, I wouldn’t want to get fired on the first day,” she said. “Though I don’t know about sticking with this. Maybe I’ll come back another evening so Seong sees that I tried.”

The manager did pay her well for the work, thankfully. Chou just wasn’t sure if even that was worth working there. After all, she already had a job at the flower shop and that was very much a more pleasant job. And the Metaverse was providing her with equipment and money for work she wanted to do.

* * *

5/10

At lunch, Ann brought out a big bag of cookies to share. “Me and Shiho made them yesterday to study for mid-terms,” she explained as she took a cookie out for herself before putting them in the middle. “But it’s rather much for both of us.”

“They’re good cookies,” Shiho said, snagging two from the bag. Chou took a couple to try.

“How’d you study by making cookies?” Ryuji asked, still taking one to try.

“The recipe she had was in English,” Shiho said. “And I’m not sure if these have a name in Japanese. They’re a cinnamon sugar cookie, basically, _snickerdoodles_.”

“That’s a weird sounding name,” he said. “But pretty good, yeah.”

“It’s a recipe from an American writer that my mom likes,” Ann said. “I remember her saying that she had to search for a recipe that used metric measurements that she understood better.”

“They are good,” Chou said. “I can’t bake much with the kitchen in Leblanc, but it might be good to know for later.”

“My mom likes to bake, but I don’t know if she can follow a recipe in English,” Ryuji said.

“I could see about translating it, though I’d want to test the translation to make sure it comes out right,” Ann said.

“So does this mean you feel ready for mid-terms tomorrow?” Chou asked.

“Yeah, at least in some subjects,” Ann said.

On the other hand, Ryuji groaned. “Aw, did you have to bring up mid-terms? They’re not until tomorrow.”

“You need to be prepared for the challenge,” Chou said teasingly, shaking a cookie at him. “If you’re not, we’re going to have to have a last minute brain training session with you.”

“Argh, are you trying to make my brain into mush?” Ryuji asked, although a brief smile showed that it amused him. “I don’t want brain mush.”

“Good, then you’re not a zombie,” Shiho said with a nod of approval. “We won’t have to worry about you eating our brains.”

“Exams make me feel like some zombie,” Ryuji said. “Aw man, is the end of the world going to come because of students turned into brain-dead zombies due to exams?”

“It hasn’t happened yet, so unlikely story,” Chou said.

“Well, guess it’s better to try,” Ryuji said, then sighed. “Don’t think I’ll ever be a good student, but I can at least be decent.”

As a result, they ended up back at the diner after school for more studying. Shiho seemed confidant in mid-terms as she kept cracking jokes about the subjects they were studying. Chou joined her in trying to make the jokes into something to help the others remember what they studied. But they’d have to wait a couple weeks to see if the jokes helped.

* * *

5/11 - 5/14

Exams were never something that Chou worried about. In fact, she liked them because it was something to do during school. Any questions that gave her trouble were often interesting to think through. Once school was over, she spent time reading The Illusionary Popess, then moved on to The Pirate King and a translation of Dracula. It was a habit picked up because her mother expected her to be studying ceaselessly in the weeks around exams. Reading whatever she liked usually fooled her; Chou could always excuse that it was for language and literature studies. She didn’t need the excuse this time around because Sojiro was busy in the cafe, but she wanted to do the reading.

On Saturday after school, she met up with her friends in the courtyard. “Oh man, we’re finally done with exams,” Ryuji said, sounding relieved. “We’re free!”

“Until semester finals,” Shiho said.

“Let’s not talk about those yet,” Ryuji said.

Ann laughed. “Well I felt more confidant through these exams. I’m sure I didn’t do perfectly, but I think it was better than usual.”

Shiho nodded. “Yeah, math definitely wasn’t as much of a slog, and science was also better. Thanks Chou, you’ve really helped us out.”

“No problem,” Chou said.

“So how’d you do?” Shiho asked.

Ryuji rubbed his head. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

Chou chuckled. “I found them normal for first semester mid-terms, that’s all I’ll say.”

“Well, I’d like to relax and hang out, but the track team is meeting soon,” Ryuji said.

“Oh, did you rejoin?” Shiho asked.

Ryuji shrugged. “Sorta? Yamauchi was okay with me being the team manager since the one last year was a senior. The juniors and seniors are ignoring me, while the freshman seem unsure. But I need to do this.”

“Right,” Chou said. “Tough out the initial trouble and they should see the effort you’re putting in.”

Ann nodded and clapped his back. “Yeah, you’ve got this!”

“Good luck with your team,” Shiho said with a smile. “I’ve got volleyball practice today too since we lessened work to focus on exams, but there’s a big match tomorrow.”

“Isn’t every match big at this point?” Ann asked. “But you’ve got it too. I know you’ll both succeed.”

“Thanks Ann,” Shiho said. “See you guys later.”

“Yeah, later!” Ryuji said, smiling.

Once they were gone, Ann turned to her. “Well, wanna hang out since we’re not with sports? I do want to relax after taking all those tests.”

“Sure, anything in mind?” Chou asked. “I had some plans tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah? What’re you doing?”

“I got a ticket to an art exhibit opening tomorrow,” she explained. “For some artist named Madarame.”

Her eyes brightened. “Oh, you mean Ichiryusai Madarame? I saw him on Good Morning Japan earlier this week; he’s really impressive as an artist. Not only is he really skilled at making beautiful art, but he is skilled in so many different styles of art. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, all kinds of things. You’re lucky to get a ticket, since he’s hugely popular.”

“Well then it was a nice gift and I ought to thank that person better,” Chou said.

“I didn’t have anything in mind today, so how about we take a jog around the park?” Ann suggested. “I need to do that more often. Oh yeah, and I bought myself a set of weights to train at home!”

“Sounds like you’re getting into this,” she said, smiling to encourage her. She also shifted over to a Lovers Persona since they’d be hanging out today.

Ann nodded. “Yeah, turns out a good workout is actually satisfying. And since I’m not trying to build a lot of muscle, I don’t have to do the weight training all that long. Just a bit every day and I’ll get in good shape.”

“That sounds pretty good,” Chou said.

They jogged around and Ann explained more about her new exercise routine. From how excited she seemed for it, Chou considered doing some weight training herself. But was it worth getting her own weights for? Or maybe there was some trick to doing weight training without spending a lot of money. That might need some research.

In the evening, Chou went to work in the beef bowl shop again. Seong was there this time. “Oh, you did apply,” he said, smiling. “I’m glad to see you here; the weekend is especially crazy around here.”

“Yeah, I tried it out earlier this week,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll stick with it, but I thought I’d give it another try.”

“Well I wouldn’t blame you,” he said. “I’d quit too if the manager doesn’t improve his attitude, but this job just pays too well to give up easy.”

“You saving up for something?”

He shrugged. “Sort of? I’m hoping to get in a decent college on scholarship; a really good college might be out of the question though. But I’ll need some money saved up even if I have a scholarship.”

“That’s true, but I hope you’re not overworking yourself,” she said.

“I can handle it,” Seong insisted.

Once they started the evening shift, it was quickly apparent that Seong wasn’t exaggerating about the crowd. The counter they worked behind was in the middle of the restaurant, so they split sides and took care of customers that way. Even so, there were points where Chou was working on five orders at once. It was a challenge she liked, though it might quickly become dull and repetitive. She was confidant in her memory and kept up even at the busiest.

At a point where things started to lull, one of the customers spoke to her. “You two are working quite hard tonight.”

“As we should, sir,” she said, like a good worker should. Internally, she wanted to roll her eyes and say it was lame.

“But you both seem to be high schoolers,” he said. “I’ve seen workers your age here working alone much too often. It’s unfortunate that you would be left on your own during a busy period, but far too many businesses exploit their young workers rather than support them in their studies.”

“I do have another job that’s better about that,” she said.

He nodded. “Such businesses should be commended, although it’s a pity that things have grown to the point where being decent to your workers is commendable rather than the norm. I should remember that for my next speech. You take care now.”

“Sure,” she said.

“See you later, Mr. Yoshida,” Seong said as the man got up.

“You know him?” Chou asked, since they didn’t need to do anything at the moment.

“Mr. Yoshida? Sure, he’s pretty well known around here. He’s kind of a politician who gives speeches in Station Square at least once a week. Nice guy, but he hasn’t been elected in nearly two decades. I don’t know why; he’s honestly pretty amazing with his speeches. I’d vote for him if I could, especially since he favors worker rights.”

“Maybe I’ll go listen to him some evening,” Chou said. Someone who gave skilled speeches… it reminded her of what Makoto had said about the importance to be able to speak well publicly. Plus, a politician who hadn’t won an election in nearly twenty years sounded like one of the outcasts who might become a Confidant. She’d just have to go sometime and see how things were.

* * *

‘My friends were happy that exams were over with. I am too, just looking forward to getting past review material in classes. Other than that, I ran in Inokashira Park with Ann and worked at the beef bowl shop with my classmate Seong-Min. I know he works at the gym in Shibuya too and he always seems tired in class. He said that he’s saving up for further education, though if he keeps working as hard as he seems to be, he’s going to have trouble keeping up with the studies for exams next year.

‘Well I’m not going to work at that beef bowl place again, although the food’s good and I might eat there. I did get lucky and got a ticket to the Madarame art exhibit opening up tomorrow. Maybe I can get some extra credit in school for making a report about it. I’m not in an art class, but could it count for social studies? I’ll have to ask about that.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was split between the two titles for this chapter, but then had the thought, it's fitting to Madarame to use both.


	23. Reverse Emperor

5/15

Since Ann had mentioned it, Chou looked up the segment with Madarame on Good Morning Japan. It already had over a hundred thousand views on it, with an overwhelming amount of positive feedback. Madarame was humble and yet flowery with his words while in front of the camera. When asked how he came up with so many different ideas, he claimed that they bubbled up from within like a spring. They discussed one of the works that was going to be at the exhibit, one of a ship on a river surrounded by forests. It was supposedly a tribute to the adventure and wonder that the natural world presented.

There was a huge line outside the museum, enough that it gave Chou second thoughts of being here today. But she’d already let Morgana out to do her own scouting (although what she had in mind, Chou didn’t know). Sticking with it, she waited in line for an hour until she could get inside. Then the exhibit hall was packed, full of the murmurs of people discussing art. The peacock portrait was right in front, so Chou got out her new sketchbook and began making a quick copy of it. For this kind of puzzle, the details and general design would be important.

She used her aura hiding skills to make sure other visitors didn’t bother her. It meant that sometimes someone walked in front of her when she was sitting on a bench to sketch. Despite the annoyance, it worked out because it took quite some time to get useful sketches to compare to the ones in the Palace. Other guests strolled through or got tired of the crowd; Chou had a relatively relaxing afternoon of sketching.

There was something else she noticed, something expected. Third Eye revealed traces of the original artists even though it also revealed that these were plagiarized copies. Among the thirty-two paintings on display, two were from Nakanohara and three were from Yusuke. As she only knew the names of the other artists, she couldn’t identify their works. But Yusuke did have the most works in this display of any of the artists; they seemed to be pretty popular with the visitors. Chou got to hear a man gush over Yusuke’s still life of flowers, a smartphone, and some other items. “It feels like it’s trying to tell a story here, perhaps of love and expectations, perhaps of waiting and disappointment.”

“Telling stories visually without being obvious about it is one of my favorite activities,” Madarame said, hiding his pride behind gentle tones. Meanwhile, Chou wondered if it was merely a juxtaposition of standard still-life fare and modern additions. It could certainly still be telling a story, intentionally or not. The better source would be from Yusuke himself.

Once she was done with sketching the works, she checked around. Both Madarame and Yusuke were here as it was the first day of the exhibit. The former was talking amicably with visitors who were in awe of him and surprised at his demeanor. In contrast, the latter was quietly being a wallflower, occasionally answering questions if he happened to be nearby. She put up her sketchbook and got Yusuke’s attention. “Hey there.”

“Oh, Amamiya-san, you came,” he said, smiling at her. “What do you think? Isn’t Sensei amazing?”

“Yes, everything here is great,” she said. “Some of them you can easily get lost in thought observing.”

“That’s how a great work should be,” Yusuke said, satisfied with the response. “Any of them you want to talk about? I always enjoy a deep discussion over art.”

“Sure, I don’t know as much but I can tell you what I think of them,” Chou said, looking at the last one she had sketched, ‘Lonely Moon From My Window’. It wasn’t one that had been in the puzzle halls, but she thought it might be useful to know these works as they’d be on his mind. “Like this one, all the extra space with everything condensed either around the desk or the window does make it feel more lonely.”

Yusuke nodded. “Yes, you mean the use of negative space to fulfill the theme. And if you notice here, the brightness of the moon in the dark painting draws the eye there first, but there are a few small things here, like this reflection and the way this pen is angled, those draw your attention then to the figure at the desk. It’s a trick of composition, to guide the viewer’s eye in a way that they don’t realize.”

“Then it’s several tricks of visual psychology?” she asked. “That’s interesting. I didn’t really notice the pen’s angle until you pointed it out.” Another thing to watch out for in Madarame’s Palace.

“This is actually a place in Sensei’s atelier,” Yusuke said. “The room is usually not arranged like this, but when he was working on this painting, he arranged the things here in several ways to find an arrangement that was both visually pleasing and fitting to a theme of loneliness.”

“That makes sense, shifting the real place to fully feel what you want to portray in the painting,” Chou said.

“You have pretty good sensibilities for an artist,” he said.

She discussed a few more paintings with him, trying to focus on the ones involved in the puzzle to get out more insight into them. That included the Lost Forest painting that was one of Yusuke’s. He nearly moved on to a neighboring painting, so Chou spoke up, “This one looks at first glance like a normal painting of nature; I can recognize the place as being in Inokashira Park since my friends have taken me there sometimes. But the red streaks all around and the unnatural shadows break up the feeling of peace usually associated with nature. Instead, it gives off a feeling of pent up anger and frustration underneath a calm facade.”

“Is that what you take from it?” Yusuke asked, seeming confused and ashamed that she decided to speak of that painting. “I wasn’t sure how I felt about this one myself; the discord is disconcerting after a few moments. And there’s many better paintings then this one in the show.”

“Well different people take things in different ways,” Chou said. “I can relate to this one. Hmph, the amount of times that people have been adamant about not rocking the boat and instead keeping social order when I know something’s not right with a situation, I could be rich if I got a hundred yen every time I felt that way. It’s like they care more about their image and appearing fine than about truth and justice.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Yusuke said, “I suppose one could find that meaning in this painting. It feels a bit like the forest is about to burst into flames from what’s hidden beneath the calm. Well, that’s not really appropriate and I don’t know…”

“It is surprising that a gentle old man like him could paint this,” she said. “Like some of the others have, I don’t know, more youthful spirits to them? Or it could just be my imagination. And that portrait up front is rather weird.”

“Is it?” Yusuke asked. It wasn’t one of his works and in fact was Nakanohara’s. But her statement still baffled him.

Checking through Third Eye, she noted that Madarame was in another corner of the exhibit, further from the Peacock Portrait. “Yeah, let’s go over there.”

At the front, they luckily got a spot near it without others being there. “This is a good self portrait, so what makes it weird?” he asked.

“It’s the peacock feathers,” she said, pointing them out. “It’s not a full fan of them, but they sit behind him like they would on a real peacock. That’s usually a symbol of vanity, so the weird thing is that he would put them on a self portrait without there being some other meaning behind them.”

“Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that,” Yusuke said. After a moment, his eye twitched and it seemed like he might have thought of something. “W-well, perhaps it does have another meaning, or it’s a joke. Madarame-sensei doesn’t act vain.”

“You’re right, he doesn’t,” Chou said. “Then maybe it is a joke, or something to make those who recognize the symbol wonder.”

“Sometimes a mysterious quality is of great value in art,” he said, then got out his phone. “Actually, why don’t I show you one of his most famous works, one that we can’t display here. Here, this is the Sayuri. It’s the painting that sparked his fame as an artist.”

She looked over the picture on the phone closely. It was an elegant traditionally Japanese portrait, one that a person might expect out of someone known as famous with Japanese styles of art. With minimal pieces like violet mist and a tree branch around her, the woman in red had a gentle yet mysterious expression on her face. There was a warmth to her gaze that, without anything obvious that she was focusing on, was difficult to interpret.

“That’s really beautiful,” Chou said. “Why can’t you have it here?”

“It was stolen some years ago by a disgruntled student of his,” Yusuke said, looking at the picture himself. “I happened upon it online in elementary school when I searched his name as part of a class assignment. While I already had some interest in art and appreciation for it, this painting was the first one that truly spoke to me. Sensei was rather surprised when I asked him about it; he has been devastated by its loss and still wonders what happened to it to this day. This painting is my muse, one could say; my goal as an artist is to create a work that speaks to others of true beauty as this painting speaks to me. But, I have a long road to get there.”

“Well that isn’t his first painting, right?” she said. “He had to have painted many others before this. I’m sure you can get there if you keep painting and striving to improve.”

“Th-that’s very kind of you to say,” he said, embarrassed at the compliment. The way he gazed away hinted that he didn’t feel worthy of it. Chou had a good feeling that he wouldn’t be able to manipulate his expressions and self-control as much as Madarame could. “But, well, you haven’t seen any of my work, so how can you say that?”

“It’s because I believe anyone can reach their goals with enough work and perseverance,” Chou said, noticing that Madarame was within hearing distance now and approaching them. Time to shift gears a little. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out as you’d like, or things out of your control knock you off course. But I believe even unexpected hardships can be overcome; I want it to be that way.”

“It would be good if that were true,” Yusuke said, smiling and taking the idealism at face value. Even if it was something she hoped for, Chou had bluffed some naivety and uncertainty into it. He might miss it, but he wasn’t the one she wanted to notice that.

“Well, I might be able to start working with you tomorrow,” she said. “There’s something else I need to get done today. I’ll see you then, Kitagawa-san.”

“Sure, see you later Amamiya-san.”

Although what she had to do was kill time until she could see about finding that Yoshida guy. Chou considered it for a bit, then went to the arcade to practice some more with Gun About; Makoto had been back here too, as her rank was slowly advancing. The game app encouraged her to visit the in-game store for special equipment and skills. From a bit of online research (while waiting on a machine to open up), Chou found that she could keep building towards stealth and agility to match what she could do as Joker. It wasn’t a popular build, as people thought it was harder to play and the current stealth equipment tended to leave one in a glass cannon state. But if she failed as Joker, she could lose her life. Practicing with a shooter character that could lose due to small errors seemed like the thing to do.

The optimal store equipment had quite a price tag on it, that is, if she went with in-game currency. There were real money options, of course. Those were seemingly cheap but one had to buy every piece of it whereas in-game currency could buy a whole set. And of course, there were only basic inoffensive costume changes in the free lists. If a player wanted a cool look, or if they wanted to go offensively sparkly with super glitter-bling options, those cost money. But it seemed both in-game currency and real-world currency were options for buying nearly everything. In-game currency would just take longer to build up for a purchase.

Buying things now was tempting, but she was used to being careful with her money. She was using Gun About as practice for the Metaverse, so she was going to be taking an hour or two here and there for this, when she had to wait on things. Because of that, she felt like she could build up money during games to buy stuff to be more like Joker. There were even some tips from other players about good gold farming maps; she should be able to access a few now and earn access to others if she played smart.

A boy gave up on further games of Gun About, letting her go in to snatch the machine’s controller before others did.

* * *

During their evening meal, Madarame asked, “I saw you speaking with Amamiya-san earlier. What did she think of the show?”

What should he answer? That she was keen enough to notice that something wasn’t right with the paintings? That she could read how his feelings had messed up his painting of Inokashira Park? “She’s quite intelligent,” Yusuke said after a moment. “She doesn’t have artistic knowledge, but she notices things about art that most untrained people wouldn’t notice. If she got training, she’d be a methodical artist, I believe.”

“She sounds like a good friend to you,” Madarame said. “I hope you two get along.”

Yusuke nodded. “Right, she is interesting to talk to.”

And maybe she could give him the courage to do something about his situation. Although what that would be, he could not imagine. Something had to change with him, or else he might not be worthy.

* * *

Chou got out of the subway station in time to catch Yoshida’s speech from the beginning. And he was a very impressive speaker, passionate about his message and making her feel that passion even though politics hadn’t been that interesting to her so far. But then, shouldn’t it be? Politics was about deciding and enforcing the laws of the nation. They were one nation, but many people who had many different opinions on what was important. Ideally, politicians mediated between all the different opinions, found the real problems, and solved them to the satisfaction of the majority. Realistically, one heard a lot about politicians taking advantage of their power and influence to better their own lives rather than the lives of those they represented. They could be a major source of distortion in the world. But how did one clean up politics?

Maybe with people like this man? She could tell by Third Eye that he spoke of what he believed in. However, only a few people around them were as into his speech as she was. There were those who were skeptical, believing that he had to be lying. Not surprising, as most adults she overheard on the trains were distrustful of politicians. Still, it was disappointing to someone who was being honest. Chou wished for a bit that she could grant the ability to tell honesty or dishonesty to others. But if she did, she couldn’t manipulate others like she was doing to Madarame now. Yusuke too, if she had to be honest with herself. But this should be to Yusuke’s benefit in the end.

“Wow, this guy is really good,” Morgana said from her shoulder. “It’s a shame other people don’t seem as interested.”

Chou nodded. “You think that if I spoke that well, that the Shadows would be easier to negotiate with?”

“Oh yeah, that would be great!” she said, patting her neck. “You think you can convince him to teach you?”

“It’s worth a shot,” she said quietly.

“Hello, you’ve been listening quite attentively, young lady,” Yoshida said, having moved off his small stand as people were drifting off. “I don’t get many people like that these days.”

“It’s a surprise you don’t, since you speak really well with a good message,” Chou said.

“Thank you, I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a smile. “You seem familiar. Weren’t you working in the beef bowl shop the other evening?”

She nodded. “I was trying to help a classmate, but I don’t think it’ll work out.”

“That shop has had trouble keeping workers around,” Yoshida said. “Likely due to greed and carelessness about their workers. But never mind that, you seem like a good worker. I’ve been looking for an assistant to help out with my speeches. Would you be interested?”

“Sure, that sounds interesting,” Chou said.

“Great,” he said. “Unfortunately, due to election laws, I can’t hire an assistant as young as yourself. You’d have to be a volunteer; I’ll find some way to compensate you for your time.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’d like to learn more about politics and public speaking since I’ve felt like I could know more about those subjects. So I’d like to listen to you more and see what I can pick up.”

“Is that so?” he said, looking thoughtful. “Some people would say giving a good speech is what I’m best at. All right, in exchange for your assistance, I’ll coach you in speaking and politics. Is that an acceptable deal?”

Chou nodded as a chime sounded in her head. “Yes, that sounds great.” He turned out to be the Sun confidant, which she found out after discussing some general speaking strategies with him. He was mostly looking for help during the weekend when more people were around Station Square; it was another thing to add to her schedule, but it should be worth it.

That evening, she started putting the names of Madarame’s students into the Metaverse app to awaken their Personas so she could invite them. She held off on Yusuke for now, focusing on other names. However, the app kept coming up with an ominous message. ‘The recipient of this request is deceased.’

Morgana was sitting on the window seat enjoying the late spring breeze. “Man, this is not looking good,” she said. “That’s around a dozen so far, isn’t it?”

Chou nodded. “That’s a third of the students we recorded all deceased. It doesn’t say what happened to them.”

“Didn’t Nakanohara mention that he felt lucky to have rebuilt his life, even as humble as it was?” The end of Morgana’s tail twitched. “Those students probably weren’t as lucky, left homeless with their dreams shattered.”

“Madarame is responsible for those deaths even if he didn’t directly kill them,” Chou said, pausing in trying out more names.

“That’s going to be really horrible on you to make him feel the weight of his sins, huh?” Morgana said, getting up to hop down on the bed.

“Right,” she said. “But it should be done. He’s likely like Kamoshida, too wrapped up in his distortions to empathize. We could even say that Madarame is what Kamoshida might have turned into with enough time even though their crimes are different, with a trail of death and broken dreams in his wake.”

“Well make sure that you’re prepared when we go to steal the Treasure,” Morgana said.

“I will,” she said, going back to putting in names. It took six more before she found one alive. “Here we go. But given how much trouble we’ve had finding one, I feel like we should try just this one man at first.”

“Not a bad idea,” Morgana said. “Last time was pretty hectic.”

Once she had the invitation sent out, she navigated to her own layer of the Metaverse to take care of awakening Itachi’s Persona. Like before, there was a portal in her room to go through, taking her to the awakening space. Her old hometown road felt different this time, in a way that concerned her. The shadows on the street were thicker than usual, shifting like there was an unstable light source. In those shadows, there was more junk and debris than before. There was a man huddled in the gutter, wearing old clothes with raged edges.

“Itachi?” she asked. “You want revenge against Madarame?”

He got up from sitting. “Yeah… is this real?”

“It’s real and a dream,” she said, then instructed him on playing the Persona game with the streetlight there.

But when his potential Persona appeared, Itachi flinched and stepped back. “N-no, this isn’t true! I can stop, I’m not like this!”

It seemed to be a Devil Persona. But on his denial, it shifted into a Devil Shadow that she could see. It appeared like a monkey wearing several bags stuffed with strange items that didn’t make sense to her until a syringe dropped out of one. “It’s all right, just have a little more to blank out the world,” the Shadow said. “Kaneshiro keeps his word; we just have to find more customers and more mules. Everything else is just emptiness.”

“I’m not like that, just sometimes,” Itachi said, gripping his hair. “Just because I have nothing else. This is just a temporary thing, and it’s all Madarame’s fault! If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be like this.”

“If you’re going to get vengeance on Madarame, you may as well get vengeance on Kaneshiro for roping you into this,” the monkey Shadow said, then shrugged. “Or you can just not care and embrace the oblivion. Everything is emptiness and ruin, so take what peace you can find.”

“This isn’t what I wanted!” Itachi said. “I don’t want you!”

The Shadow cackled strangely at that. Ace drew her sword, looking alarmed. “Watch out! This Shadow is going berserk!”

As Joker drew her own weapons, the monkey Shadow grew larger and more grotesque, with strange scars and sickly green skin. “But you do want me and the oblivion I bring,” the monkey snarled, throwing needles at them.

Itachi went back to crouching in the gutter and covering his head, shaking in tears. Joker and Ace had to brace themselves against an intoxicating fog the Shadow summoned. Occasionally, it put one or both of them to sleep, inflicting them with disorienting and terrifying dreams. Joker soon found that it was weak to ice; it was then a matter of keeping awake long enough to freeze it. It was a tougher battle than most other Shadows.

Then Itachi’s Shadow let out an agonizing wail, something that shook Joker deeply. She snapped out of it and used another Bufula. But when she glanced over at Ace, she was shaking too. “Ugh, what are we doing?” she asked.

“Ace! Come on, we’ll win!” She swapped over to a Persona that could use a powerful strike. With the monkey Shadow frozen, it got shattered and defeated.

It then reformed into a golden-eyed version of Itachi. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you,” the Shadow said regretfully. “I want vengeance on Madarame who ruined my life and stole my art. Kaneshiro too…”

“Who’s Kaneshiro?” Joker asked.

“Junya Kaneshiro,” he specified. “He’s a mafia boss who basically rules over Shibuya. His thugs got me into drugs, then I ended up joining them to afford the habit. I’ve never actually met Kaneshiro and was lucky to even hear his name, but it was ultimately his drug-dealing schemes that ruined me when I thought my life couldn’t get worse. I don’t know what I can do now; you’ve overcome me, but if I return to myself, the drugs can revert me back to what I was. Even if I can resist that, then I’m in trouble with the mafia for backing out on them. What can I do? Just turn myself in to the police?”

“That might be what you need to do to survive,” she said. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you there.”

“Between death and prison, I don’t have much of a choice,” the Shadow said, looking sorrowfully over at his real dreaming self. “But if you’re going to punish Madarame, I can find some peace knowing that his injustice won’t stand. You think you can do something about Kaneshiro too?”

“There’s an overall plan I’m following,” Joker said. “I’ll have to check, but if this Kaneshiro rules over Shibuya with drugs, he should already be on the list.”

“Good, then I’ll turn myself in and hope for the best,” the Shadow said, turning into a glow that returned back to the dreamer. He then vanished from the dreamworld.

“G-good, I think you handled it the best that it could’ve gone,” Ace said, still sounding shaken. “He should at least stop hurting himself.”

“I hope it works out for him,” Joker said, crouching down by her. “But are you all right?”

“Not really, but you defeated the Shadow in good time,” she said. She rubbed her cheek. “Phew… that was a dangerous curse there, one that inflicts a despair so powerful that it saps your will to live until you succumb. It doesn’t matter what your normal mental state is, that curse will end anybody if the Shadow that cast it sticks around long enough.”

“That’s terrifying,” she said, recalling how that attack had felt. “We’ll have to be alert to that now.”

“Well it’s a rare curse and there are ways to cure it,” Ace said. “Let’s get out of here; I’ll feel better with some good sleep.”

“Got it,” she said, taking out her phone to get them out of the Metaverse. While Morgana settled onto the bed right away, Chou got the guestbook and looked up Kaneshiro. “It’s so convenient that he’s got everyone neatly organized,” she said. “Just have to look up criminal contacts.”

“Shido must be an organized person,” Morgana said, looking over from where she’d curled up. “But his expectations worked in our favor.”

Right on the first page of the section, she found the name. “Here we go, Junya Kaneshiro,” Chou said. “Shibuya crime leader, provides funding and underworld support, does occasional jobs against businesses and individuals in Shibuya. It looks like we confirmed a Palace for him but haven’t checked it out yet.”

“We can check out his Palace if you want,” Morgana said. “Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow.”

“I’d rather focus on Madarame’s Palace right now,” she said. “But once that’s done, we can move on to Kaneshiro if we can handle it.”

“All right,” she said. “Hey, what would you do if I wasn’t a human? I mean, I’m pretty sure I am, but there is a chance that I’m not.”

“I wouldn’t do anything different,” she said. “You’re still my friend and guide.”

Morgana looked a little sad. “Maybe, but I don’t know how much of a guide I’m being now. You’re catching on fast to how the Metaverse works, sometimes faster than I notice things. You could probably work without me, but I don’t think I could work without you. At least not as well. I got captured in a Palace on my own.”

“I wouldn’t have made it far without your guidance,” Chou said, sitting down to pet Morgana’s back. “I want to stick with you.”

“Thanks, I hope I can keep helping you,” she said.


	24. Spot the Difference

5/16

Exam results weren’t posted yet and the classes that day were discussions of what would be taught over the second half of the first semester. Things could get interesting for school, interesting in a good way. After classes ended, she sent a text to Yusuke letting him know that she could model for him today. She headed over to Shibuya, thinking that if he didn’t have time, she could work a few hours.

Yusuke texted back saying that he would be delayed but would like to begin. Chou headed over to the atelier. “What are you going to do today?” Chou asked once she stopped outside the building. “I don’t know if he wants to draw a cat-like person too.”

“I’ll scout out the building since I can sneak around better,” Morgana said, her confidence back. “We got stopped by the exhibit paintings, but it’s likely we may get stopped by something else that has a real life counterpart in there. I couldn’t get in yesterday.”

“Good idea, since I won’t be able to take a look around myself,” she said.

After waiting a couple of minutes, somebody came walking down the sidewalk. But it wasn’t someone Chou knew; the woman had a camera on a strap around her chest and a fanny pack on her hip. “Hey, do you know Madarame?” she asked.

“No, I’ve only met him once,” she said.

“Then what are you doing around here?” she asked, tilting her head. “You don’t seem like the usual fan of his.”

“I’m modeling for a painting by his student,” Chou said. “Why do you ask?”

The woman smiled like she had picked up a breakthrough. “Sorry about interrogating you so suddenly, but you could be a big help to me.” She took a card out of her fanny pack and handed it over. “I’m Ichiko Ohya, a reporter for Tokyo Metro Newspaper. I’m doing an investigation into rumors of plagiarism by Madarame. While his student might not cooperate, I had a hunch about you and it might be right! Would you be willing to help me out?”

Chou glanced at the road towards Central Street; Yusuke should be obvious coming from there. “Well Kitagawa-san should be coming soon, but we’d see him coming. What do you have in mind?”

“Since you’re going to be a model for the student, it’ll be immediately apparent if a portrait of you shows up as one of Madarame’s works,” Ohya said. “You might also notice something since you’ll be let inside here. If you inform me of what’s going on, I’ll compensate you well for the info. And don’t worry, I won’t let on that you were my source.”

Should she do this? She’d make Madarame confess to his crimes before Ohya could put together an article about it. However, a contact with someone writing for a newspaper? That could be useful, especially if she became a confidant. Chou nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. There were some things that struck me as odd in the exhibit yesterday; we can talk about it later.”

“Great! So may I have your number so we can text? Oh, and your name, got a little ahead of myself.”

“Sure,” she said, exchanging numbers with her. Ohya then excused herself so that Yusuke didn’t see them together.

Not long after, he arrived. “My apologies, Amamiya-san. The trains were off schedule.”

“Was there another accident?” she asked.

“I don’t believe so,” he said, taking out a key to unlock the door. “Sensei will be busy until evening, so we’ll be on our own. Come on inside, we’ll be working in a studio on the second floor.”

The inside of the house was as humble and old looking as the outside. The floors were bare concrete or dark tiles, difficult to tell if they were dirty. But as a residence of artists, there was painted graffiti on the walls brightening this up. There were bookcases full of books around, as well as paintings on the walls. The furnishings looked old, battered, and carved on. From the things she spotted in corners of rooms, it seemed like this place might not have heating or air conditioning.

The studio Yusuke brought her into had many cabinets and tables full of art supplies. All around the room were old lamps that would control the lighting. Also in the room were two stools, an easel, and an old dusky red couch. “I’m going to do some sketches first to figure out the exact composition, so it’ll only be short poses today,” Yusuke said, picking up a large sketchbook from a table.

While he wasn’t looking, Chou set her bag down on the floor. Morgana zipped out and was in the hall before Yusuke turned and had a chance to see her. “All right, just let me know what to do.”

He nodded and turned around to take one of the stools. “Yes, but let me know if something would be difficult to hold. Sensei reminded me to be mindful of that this morning. I’m not sure you’d understand, but art requires a great deal of focus and it’s easy to ignore all else around it.”

“I get that way with reading sometimes, so I think I get it,” she said.

Yusuke had her standing for a few sketches, then sitting on the stool at various angles facing him or away from him. Overall, it was rather boring for her. She spent some time mentally composing poems and puns as she did her best to keep still. Then he asked, “You said you liked reading?”

“Yes, I have some books with me,” Chou answered.

“Do you think you could hold still if you sit in the couch reading while I sketch you?” Yusuke asked.

On thinking about it, she realized there were probably a lot of little adjustments she made as she read. But if she tried… “Possibly. It’d be easier if you were working at an angle where one hand was hidden so that I could change pages with that one. And if this takes a few days, I won’t always be reading the same book.”

“I think I can work with that as long as the books are the same general size and shape,” he said, tapping his pencil on the sketchbook. “And when I get to the painting, there might be a day where I ask that you keep the book on one page so I can complete that section consistently.”

“Sounds good to me,” Chou said, going to her bag to pull out a book. The one she grabbed was ‘The Gentleman Thief’. She got into a comfortable reading position on the couch.

Yusuke let her choose the pose this time, then fiddled with the lights to get something he was after. It was a bit irritating to her as sometimes she didn’t have good lighting to read. Thankfully, he settled on getting a desk lamp to put behind her on a table and balancing it with one overhead lamp on low. Chou had to read slower than she was used to because she had to keep in mind not to fidget or move the hand that Yusuke could see. But doing this did solve the problem of boredom.

“I believe this can work,” he said, his voice sounding dry.

“Good, but I could use a drink,” Chou said, moving to get her water bottle. She spotted Morgana back in her bag; the cat winked, which was odd but a good sign. She smiled briefly, then took the bottle for a drink.

“I guess it has been a while,” he said as if just realizing that. “That’ll do for today. I’ll need some time to consider this composition, so do you think you could come back Thursday?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” she said. After saying goodbye, Chou headed out across the street. “Do we want to head in? I feel like I need to move around after that modeling session.”

“You have your sketchbook, so sure, we should be able to get past that second floor,” Morgana said. “Let’s go!”

“Got it.” She brought out her phone, checked the street, and then transferred them to Madarame’s Palace.

They moved up to the second floor safe room to get to the puzzle gallery. On getting out, they both noticed that the paintings around had changed. Joker and Ace went over to the security room to check the password cheat sheet. It now said ‘PW- Display# Lonely Moon, Lost Forest, Peacock Portrait, Cat on a Fence, Old Fisher’. As suspected, they were all those that were in the exhibit now. Finding the password should be easy.

Taking out her sketchbook from her pocket (and trying not to think of how it came out of the smaller sized pocket when it barely fit her school bag), Joker opened up to the ‘Cat on a Fence’ picture since it was still outside the security room. “Now that we have the reference, this is a simple puzzle.”

“Right, a child could do this,” Ace said. “But this isn’t quite a painting, is it? It doesn’t look like it.”

She checked some notes she made. “It’s made by cutting out parts in paper, then layering them on top of one another. So any that are paintings are wrong.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” she said.

“If you did it all by hand, yes,” Joker said. “There’s probably printers that can make it easier. This one isn’t right because the cat’s tail is turned the other way around.”

Most of the pictures had obvious clues to being wrong: different colors, missing objects, added objects. ‘Cat on a Fence’ turned out to be picture 3 as the display copy. ‘Lonely Moon’ was easy because of what Yusuke had said about it. Only one copy of that had the moon in the right phase, the pen at the right angle, and the student drawn correctly, number 7. In contrast, ‘Lost Forest’ was actually tough to decide as three of them appeared correct with just slight differences in arrangement of embers. Her copy was good enough to pick out 2 as the display copy, making her glad that she’d taken her time with it.

The password ended up as 72135, which let them open up the shutter gates, shut off the laser beams, and mess with the cameras. Unfortunately, the cameras were all for the ground floor and this one, not letting them peek at the next floor. Joker made it so the cameras were mostly as they had been for the first floor. But for the second floor, she shut off the one they had to avoid earlier at a corner between here and the stairs up. She replaced it with a camera over the ‘Peacock Portrait’ area, not sure of how aware the Shadow guards would be.

Up on the third floor, they were immediately greeted by a large golden statue of Madarame. It was nothing like how he presented himself as a humble old man. Instead, his arms were raised and his expression had a grandstander’s smile. It was like he was encouraging a crowd to cheer for him and revel in his greatness. He also had his hair done up like traditional Japanese ruler. One could just imagine a crowd with ceaseless applause around this statue.

The demon using Madarame’s younger form was there the base of the statue. “Ah, you’ve come back,” he said, sounding pleased. “You’re in for a treat, my dear invaders. This is a floor that is all about me.”

“You or your host?” Ace asked.

“Clever girl,” the demon said in amusement. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself because at this time, there is no difference with me. There are many memories of myself here, some amazing, some not so amazing. However, there is also my Shadow Self around who has full reign over this Palace, unlike the smaller selves of memory on this floor. He may be here, he may not be here. And if he spots you, dear invaders, he will immediately deem you a threat and raise all the security to very high levels. Do you think you can spot the difference with my selves?” He chuckled, then vanished.

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” Ace said. “The memory selves should be cognitions while the Shadow Self is obviously a Shadow. I could smell the difference.”

“I think I could tell the difference too,” Joker said. “Let’s be careful moving around.”

From the map, they could see that this was a level with winding halls and lots of small exhibit rooms. The halls were patrolled by guard Shadows, now joined by female Shadows that were well-dressed with clipboards. The females were babbling incoherently while looking over the vases, artifacts, and paintings on display. Perhaps they were a museum worker that Madarame was used to dealing with? She and Ace found plenty of small cover in benches and pedestals to move through the halls unseen.

The stairs up to the next level were barred off and watched over by cameras. The security room on this level, according to the map, was tucked away in the middle surrounded by four exhibit rooms. There appeared to be no doors into the room. However, Ace felt like there might be a vent they could use, or else a hidden door in one of the exhibits. They went to the nearest of the four exhibits they could reach without passing through the constant cameras near the door.

Inside, they found a sushi restaurant with a number of indistinct cognitions. The men were in business suits and the women were in lovely dresses. Madarame was there, dressed in his earthy clothes. “True, you have an excellent eye for beauty,” Madarame said in false flattery. “Most people do not give much thought to the things that please their eye. They just want easily recognized names, brands that they know and trust. But you are a discerning patron. I can entrust you with one of my originals because I know you will take good care of an artwork that you appreciate. Beauty should be in capable hands.”

“Thank you, you have a good eye for character,” the cognition by him said, pleased by the flattery. Meanwhile, Joker and Ace sneaked around the room searching for a way into the security room. “With your work in my possession, people will think I’m cultured and classy. It’ll do my reputation a world of good.”

Madarame gave a smug chuckle. “And you prove to be another person who pretends class when you don’t deserve your wealth. You’re desperate to prove that you are worthy, and so you come to me. That’s fine, as long as you pay well. You won’t get an original.”

“I really want to look good, so,” the patron said, pausing a moment, “here, I can cover you for the meal. I know you must invest everything into your art.”

“I do invest quite a lot into my art, but it’s mostly in time and resources other than money. With the right discipline, I can be frugal with my students. Which means that I am perfectly capable of paying for this sushi whenever I want. But you are a good paying customer, so,” Madarame paused as well, “well thank you, that’s quite generous of you.”

In the meantime, Joker and Ace met up at the door leading into another room. But being there, it was clear that the other room was a painting on the wall. Ace sighed in exasperation while touching it, then shrugged. With nothing they could do here, they left to search the next exhibit room.

They found the illusion of a dormitory hallway through the door. Only one door was real; it was open, leading into Madarame’s dorm room. His younger self was there, but this one wasn’t ghostly. It had the distinct aura of a cognition. “Why do art supplies have to be so expensive?” he grumbled as he was trying to work on a painting. “I can do far better if I wasn’t pressed for time between working a job, taking classes, and painting. I could make something that would take top prizes at the student contest! But that wealthy little brat is going to end up winning again since he can beg his parents for money and bribe the professor with his precocious act. He has no idea what it’s like to work for a living and sacrifice the occasional meal for the paints necessary.”

It was easier to tell that the dorm room wouldn’t get them anywhere. “He was awfully whiny in there,” Ace whispered. “If he was trying to impress us with his so-called greatness, that wasn’t a good piece of evidence.”

“Trying to prove he had humble origins, I suppose,” Joker said. “Show that he deserves his fame and fortune.”

“Maybe to show that he’s grown beyond that so he’s wiser?” Ace suggested. “But then, if he really was wise, he wouldn’t have this plagiarizing scheme.”

In the next room, they both stilled by the doorway. There was a Shadow inside: Madarame’s Shadow Self. He looked almost like the golden statue elsewhere on this level, with the golden robes, the daiyamo hairstyle, and the makeup of a wealthy noble of a bygone era. Matching that, he was in a room that belonged to a wealthy modern day noble: new furniture made of expensive materials, ornate antiques on display, a beautiful woman sitting by him (although she had a vague featureless face). Some trees showed past the windows, so this place likely wasn’t in the city.

“There’s twelve copies of that painting out there, and at least twice that of people who would love to acquire it as a famous stolen work,” Madarame boasted to his companion. “But what they don’t know is I have the original and they will never see it in its original form. The ones who own it don’t even have an accurate copy!” He tapped his head. “The only accurate originals for my artwork are in here.”

“You’re so clever!” the woman said; there was something airheaded to her, like she didn’t care as long as she could keep living a wealthy life.

“Of course, no one else could have come up with such an excellent scheme,” he said proudly. “And legally, there’s nothing wrong with what I do. I add my own touches to all the works labeled as mine. Sometimes it’s a small detail; sometimes it’s simply redoing the painting with an expert’s hand. That’s enough to call those works mine.”

“But the true beauty is this beautiful life, isn’t it?” the woman asked.

“Certainly! The beauty of art is subjective; it takes extensive training to truly know the fine works of art from the commonplace, the works of a master from the works of a student.” They both laughed.

Joker tilted her head to indicate further down the hall. Ace nodded. With the Shadow in there, it was too dangerous to search that room. They dodged several more Shadows in order to get to the last exhibit room. Hopefully that one had their access to the security room. Otherwise, they’d have to figure out how to get Shadow Madarame out of that one room.

The last room was of the atelier that the students lived in. The cognition there was of a Madarame with darker hair and the facade of poverty. With him, there was a young woman who seemed vaguely familiar and a small child asleep on the couch. Both of them wore collars holding onto tags that looked like the eye of a peacock feather. Across the room, there was what appeared to be a sliding door. Was that another painting or a real door?

“He got really excited when I said we’d visit you today,” the woman said. “He seems to think you’re his grandfather.”

“You two are around here often enough,” Madarame said with a smile. “I would be happy to call you a daughter: you’re a woman with a strong gentle heart, and an amazing hand at painting.” It felt a bit like truth, but something was off.

Without warning, a second Madarame appeared. He was almost identical to the first, just with gold trim on his clothing. “You’re certainly a lucky woman even though your husband died,” he said, more bitter than the other. But it felt like he was also speaking truth. “And you have no right to be as talented as you are! You didn’t go to any art school; you just painted as the hobby of a housewife and a sickly person. You’ve also got the weak lady act down so everyone wants to coddle you. I have spent a fortune and many years on painting. How do you make such beautiful paintings that others exclaim are greater than mine?”

“Well thank you for agreeing to taking care of Yusuke if my illness progresses,” the woman said, speaking as if the ‘if’ was more of a ‘when’. “I don’t have anyone I can trust more than you.”

“It’s fine, I’ll treat him as my own grandchild,” the plain Madarame said. “Not that I have any, but still.”

“You’d never know any different if I just pass him off to the foster care system after you die,” the other Madarame said. “He’d never know about it either. And if I let you die here and now, I get your beautiful paintings to present as my own, no strings attached.”

The plain Madarame grimaced and rubbed his head as the other vanished. Yusuke and his mother vanished too. “I should have cared for you, like my daughter. I should have stopped before all this began. Since you’re gone, I will take care of him as my own.”

By then, Joker and Ace had gotten to the other side of the room. The closet door was real, but Joker felt sure it would make noise on being opened. She looked over at the one Madarame left. “So you recognize your crimes,” she said quietly.

“Pretty good acting, huh?” the plain Madarame said, starting to smile. “That’s what I’ll tell any who ask, yes, that’s the plan.” Yusuke’s mother appeared briefly again, sitting on the couch and talking quietly to an upset-looking Yusuke. As she vanished, he said, “There is something you two have that I don’t, something I wish I had sometimes. I have to act like I’m normal to get along with people. But you know, people are dumb. They don’t acknowledge true beauty, instead seeking titillation and popularity. As an artist, you need to detach yourself from worldly things.”

Something flickered, like someone had rapidly turned a light on and off. Ace’s ears twitched, then shifting towards the cognition of Yusuke. Or, was that a cognition now? To Third Eye, he seemed like another Shadow Self. Had he been summoned in here?

“But it’s a present from Itachi,” Yusuke said, holding onto a small object. He was a couple years older than when he was with his mother. “It’s pretty, and he got it for me.”

“The other students were getting souvenirs on the school trip,” Itachi said, also wearing a peacock tag. While he was younger here, he didn’t look much healthier. “I didn’t want to look out of place, and I just wanted to make him happy.”

Meanwhile, Ace had been looking over the sliding door for some way to open it without making noise. Joker put a hand on the door, wondering if just opening it slowly enough would work. She was getting tired of listening to this.

“Are you denying the wisdom of your teacher?” Madarame asked, acting hurt by that. “Besides, that is a false beauty, something mass-produced to get tourists to spend money. It’s not worth anything.”

“But it’s a present,” Yusuke pouted, then ran over to the door and threw it open. Ignoring the other cognitions, he ran inside the security room.

Ace and Joker followed him through, Ace sliding the door back in place since Yusuke hadn’t. “Hey kid, thanks for getting us in,” Ace said, making herself visible. Joker did the same.

Clasping his present tightly, Yusuke’s Shadow asked, “Who are you?”

“We’re the phantom thieves of dreams, here to steal your teacher’s heart,” Ace said proudly.

He looked puzzled at that. Joker said, “We’re here to make him realize the bad things he’s done.”

Hearing that, Yusuke opened his hands. Whatever his present was, it wasn’t there anymore. “Sensei says that bad things are relative to the amount of trouble they cause him. So you’re going to make him realize the trouble he causes other people?”

“That’s right,” Joker said.

“I’m supposed to say that Sensei is always right,” Yusuke said. His image flickered as he put a hand to his chin, shifting in ages. “Here, I know… he’s not always right, but everyone else is a non-person. They only matter for what they can do for him. But he makes my friends cry; I’ve told him to stop.”

“He should listen to you,” Joker said.

Yusuke nodded, turning into his current self. “You’ll end up in the closet without meals in going against him. But maybe you can do something. If you are doing something, be careful in here. You touch most anything and security guards will come from all directions.”

Ace’s ears twitched. “Aw man, you mean this one is rigged?”

After nodding, he pointed up to the ceiling. “But there’s a ladder up to the next floor here. The security room there is normal.” He then turned back into a child and laughed. “It’s got a funny password! I don’t know English, but the numbers they used can be turned upside-down in a calculator to make letters. If you want to use the computer there, you just have to say hello to it, using a calculator.” He laughed again, then disappeared.

After glancing around the room and shaking her head, Ace said, “I’m glad we got that warning, but if he can appear here, then Madarame has a powerful control over him. But we’ll take care of that too. Let’s head up.”

“Sure,” she said, spotting the panel on the ceiling where the ladder should be. There was a large pole with a hook on the end that she could use to open up the panel and let the ladder down.

The fourth floor had a long exhibit room in the center, with smaller rooms in the corners and a hallway ringed around the large room. There were security gates in the outer halls where they emerged, forcing them into the long exhibit hall. Unlike the ones on lower floors, this hall had giant crooked paintings on the walls and a maze of laser trip lines taking up the entire floor. There was no cover. However, there was a security guard looking right at them from the other side of a full line of three lasers. The security guard didn’t seem to see them, though. It turned around after a few seconds and continued on its short patrol path.

“Are these lasers like walls to the Shadows?” Joker asked quietly.

“They might just be,” Ace said, twitching her ears and whiskers. Then she looked over to a corner and pointed. “Hey, those paintings seem weird to me. I think we should check them out.”

With Third Eye, Joker could see a path to the paintings in question. “All right. I don’t think we can avoid fighting the Shadows here. We’ll have to take this carefully.”

“I agree, but have to move forward.”

Since the lasers acted as walls to Shadows, they could creep around openings to pounce on Shadows from behind. These fights were tougher than the ones on the first floor; one of them had gotten her knocked down and dizzy, possibly a hair close to being unconscious or dead. Fortunately, Ace’s healing cleared up the bleeding and dizziness. If it wasn’t for needing to be mindful of Madarame being elderly, she might have suggested going back to the lower floors to train. Mementos would have to do for that, if they could find an area of Mementos with tougher Shadows.

Getting around to the paintings felt like it took longer than getting around the four exhibit rooms on the previous floor. Once there, Ace went right to the corner of the painting near the floor. She sniffed it, then poked it with her paw. The surface of the painting rippled. “Yeah, this isn’t like the other paintings. There’s some kind of space past it. We should be able to get somewhere else on this floor through the painting.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, right as Ace hopped into the painting. Joker followed.

There was a feeling like passing through a thin cold curtain, then they were in a warm papery-smelling garden. While the painting had been still, the bamboo here rustled in a light breeze. Since there hadn’t been a clear background in the painting, the sky and land were both the color of parchment. There was a path of pale sand among the bamboo; the area outside the path had a feeling like the unknown.

“Who dares walk in my tranquil garden?!” Madarame shouted from overhead. “You dirty peasants keep trampling over my heart. You should be put to death.”

“Don’t worry, that’s just his thoughts,” Ace said. “I don’t believe he’s aware of us here.”

“He sounds a lot like Kamoshida in that,” Joker said.

“I can only be sure of my own thoughts, so those are all that matters,” Madarame said in his thoughts. “Everyone else should make themselves useful to me or keep out of the way.”

“Including that,” she said.

Following the sand path, they came upon a wooden plank across their path. “That’s just the painting frames,” Ace said, hopping across. “Looks like the path ends in this painting, where we can get out.”

Passing across the paintings was another pass through the curtains, and again as they left. It put them on a narrow ledge around the top of the room. There were vents both nearby and further down the hall. Checking the map, they decided on the nearby vent as the security room was in the corner closest to them. The vent shaft dropped them outside the security room they wanted. However, there was a security guard with a red uniform there. He felt stronger than the guards in the laser maze; his aura was red to Third Eye.

“Oo, this could be bad,” Ace said, her ears held back. “This guy is stronger than the ones that nearly took you out. We could be in for a rough time.”

“Then let’s try inviting some friends in,” Joker said, taking out her phone. She called on Yuuki first. Once he appeared and looked to her, she said, “We need some help. Would you scan this guard and give us some information on him?”

“Sure, got it,” Yuuki said, opening up his computer. His Persona appeared around him, turning its eyes to the guard. “It’s a Shiki-oni, weak to nuclear attacks. But more importantly, it’s going to reflect physical and gun attacks. You should call on more help since it greatly out-levels you, and your help needs to be people who can use magic well.”

“Oh great, sounds like an even bigger pain,” Ace said.

“That Makami I recruited can use a nuclear spell,” Joker said, switching to it. “So that isn’t a problem. And I think some physical attack could still help.” She then invited Ann, Shiho, and Ryuji into the Metaverse. Ryuji’s magic wasn’t as strong, but there was still something he could do.

“We’re back here?” Ann asked. “Or where is here?”

“I’m after another person’s distorted heart now,” Joker said. “I’d like your help, not with the target, but with getting there. I’ll be calling on their victims like I did for you.”

“Hell yeah, I’m up for more of this,” Ryuji said.

“Sure, we’re glad to help you out anytime,” Shiho said. “You freed us, after all.”

“All right, but we can’t use names now,” Joker said, then point to Ryuji. “This guard reflects weapon attacks, so you throw Tarukaja on the rest of us.” Then to Ann, “Use your best fire magic unless someone needs healing.” Then to Shiho, “You and Ace, use your wind magics. I can make him vulnerable, which should negate his reflection for a group attack.”

“You got it!” Ann said.

With the strategy decided on, Joker led the others over to the security guard’s position. He didn’t notice them until they entered the side hall around the security room. “Hold it,” he said, holding a hand up. “Guests aren’t allowed past this point… wait, guests? How did you get up here?”

“We’re not guests and we are going past you,” Joker said.

“Not on my watch,” the guard said, transforming into the Shiki-oni. As his name suggested, he was made entirely out of folded paper. It was odd then that he wasn’t weak to fire.

Ann’s fire magic still did a number on him, especially boosted with Tarukaja. The Shiki-oni tried to enrage them, getting Ryuji with it. Ace had to quickly change her spell in order to dispel the rage curse off him. The Shadow next hit Chou really hard, but she stayed alert despite the pain. Ace patched her up and the fight could keep going. After a lengthy fight that left even her guests tired, they had the Shiki-oni defeated.

“Thanks for your help, I’ll leave you to your dreams now,” Joker said, taking out her phone to send her friends away. “We can call up a different team if another tough guard shows up.”

The ‘hello’ password still worked to give them permission to use the security room. Searching through the options, she found a timer option on the laser maze. She discussed it with Ace and they agreed to use the timer. Dropping the gates between the security room and the stairs up, they set the timer to shut off all the lasers for ten minutes. They had to pass through the long exhibit hall, but the Shadows still treated where the lasers had been as walls. If there had been a five minute option, she would have tried that.

On the fifth floor, they entered a hallway grander than what had come before. A glittering koi pond lay at the end of it, surrounded by small trees and a golden sandy path like in the paintings below. A sliding screen door was decorated with paintings of bamboo; it automatically opened as they approached it. As did the door just behind it, and the door past that… there was probably two dozen identical doors sliding right out of the way. This led to a grand and incredibly gaudy sand garden room where a flowing gold sculpture defied gravity to criss-cross the starry space overhead. More laser trip lines filled the room, not letting them across the paths to an even grander door just beyond. It was a set of double doors decorated with many peacock feathers fanned out symmetrically.

“I thought this might come up,” Ace said quietly. “I sensed a safe room back by the pond; let’s go there to discuss this.”

“Sure,” she said, taking another glance around. The golden sculptures overhead were molten and literally flowing, she realized. That was likely not to help. The peacock doors might be the only way up.

In the safe room, Ace hopped up on the table. “I saw a single door back in the atelier that had an identical pattern to those big doors,” she explained. “It had a huge lock on it too, so something important is back there. Since you guys were taking a while, I attempted to open it up.” She sighed and tilted her ears down. “But it’s really hard to pick real world locks. My cat paws can’t do the same small fiddling that human hands can do. However, I bet if we could get that real world door open and make Madarame see it, the Metaverse door out there will open too. It’s hard to tell how long it’ll stay open with that change in cognition, though. This could be a tough operation.”

“In that case, let’s get out and give it some thought,” Joker said. “And train in Mementos so we don’t get wrecked like we did today.”

“Agreed.”


	25. A Long Day with Ann

5/17

Mid-term results got posted that morning, leading to a crowd trying to read the posting. Since students still treated her with fear, Chou lowered her aura to slip in to check the results herself. Ryuji was low average among their peers, passing but not impressive. Ann and Shiho had matching scores, impressively enough, putting them just below the top quarter of students. Yuuki just barely got into the top quarter, a little ahead of them. As for herself… somehow she managed to get at the top of second-year scores with a near perfect score. Something in social studies was what she got wrong, although a quick scan of the scores showed that no one had gotten a perfect score for that subject.

“Hey, you see who got top score in second year?” someone behind her said. “Isn’t that that troublesome transfer student?”

“Wait, what? She did?” Chou smirked on hearing that, covering her face up even though no one should be looking at her.

“I can believe it,” someone else said. “She doodles while in class like she’s not paying attention, but the instant any teacher asks her a question, she gives the right answer in a snap. Still crazy she’s got the top score, though.”

“But isn’t she some criminal?”

“The smart criminals are the most dangerous.”

That was true to some extent. Chou slipped out of the crowd and headed off to class. With the results posted, the teachers discussed the exams and commonly missed questions. In social studies class, it was apparent that nearly everyone had missed the same question. It was something that puzzled her since she didn’t recall it coming up in class or in any of her reading. Fortunately, it seemed no one else remembered it being talked about. Mr. Ushimaru was still mad about it, giving them a lecture that he probably should have given earlier.

At lunchtime, Ann greeted the other two with, “Hey Ryuji! Congrats on doing better than usual!”

“I still didn’t do as well as you girls,” he said, shaking his head.

“But she is right, you improved!” Shiho said, patting his arm. “You ought to be glad for that, and strive to keep improving!”

“I’m going to have to work even harder?” he asked with a pretend horror. Then he shrugged. “I’ll try, but I don’t know if I’ll be catching up to you girls. Especially not you, Chou, you slammed those exams out of the park.”

“Except one question that the teacher might have forgotten to teach,” Chou said.

“I know, isn’t that so annoying?” Ann said. “But you did do an amazing job! I wish I had a fraction of that genius.”

“Well now I’m going to have to keep this up,” Chou said. It shouldn’t be hard, but she’d like it if things got hard too.

Their friends were both at team activities today, so Ann offered to hang out with her. “But first, I want to get a pic of my midterm score to send my parents,” she said as they headed down the stairs. “It’s not a great score, but they know the trouble I’ve had. They should know it’s an improvement.”

“Sure thing,” Chou said.

But while they were there in front of the posting, a group of five students came up to them. “Hey, are you Amamiya-san?” a girl leading the group asked. Her black hair was in a distinctive asymmetrical cut that seemed to have sharp edges. She also had a small star-shaped pin for being an honors student.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked.

“Were you cheating on the exams?” she asked. “There’s no way some troublesome transfer student could have gotten top place like that.”

“I wasn’t cheating,” Chou said, shaking her head. “What makes you think that?”

“Yeah, do you have any proof of this cheating?” Ann asked.

“What proof do we need when this shouldn’t be possible?” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “You don’t belong in this school, after all. You’re a delinquent and a criminal, who somehow lucked into getting into Shujin. You shouldn’t have a score like that. There’s no way.”

“Your logic is terrible,” Chou said. “How should this not be possible?”

“Do you have proof that she’s a criminal?” Ann added. “She was on Kamoshida’s list, of people that he spread lies and rumors about. Where did you hear that nonsense?”

They were caught at a loss for words; the pack with her looked to asymmetrical bob girl. “It, it was online, on the school message board,” she admitted.

“And you’d believe whatever’s posted online?” Ann asked. “Who even posted that?” After a moment of silence, she added, “Was it an anonymous post? That’s something Kamoshida could have done.”

“Well that doesn’t prove she’s not a criminal,” she said. “Besides, this is about her cheating!”

“And your proof?” Ann asked, angered for her.

“Well do you have proof that she didn’t?” the girl asked.

“There’s some,” Chou said, pointing to the listings. “No one in our grade got a perfect score in social studies. And it seems everyone got tripped up on the same question. If I was cheating, why would I also get that question wrong?”

Ann nodded. “Yeah, there was no indication that that question would be a problem. If she was cheating, wouldn’t she have had the answer to that one too?”

“Well you’re making everyone else look bad,” she said, not about to let this go now that she’d confronted her. The others nodded along. “No one should be doing that, especially not some transfer student.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” Chou said. “This is a college prep school, is it not? Where everyone is to do their best. Why would you request that a fellow student purposely does bad?”

“The whole class needs to do their best,” she countered. “And someone distorting the average is not helping.”

Chou crossed her arms over her chest. “If you tell the person who scores the highest to score lower, then the average score will likely drop. This can be true whether you use a mean or a median. If you want the class average to raise, it will be more productive to assist those on the lower end of the scale.”

“You aren’t helping because you’re putting more people below the average,” the one boy with the group said.

“But she is helping, by tutoring me and some others,” Ann said.

“Well we still think she’s a cheating criminal and shouldn’t be here,” the girl said, frustrated by the argument. They probably expected her to give in to peer pressure.

“Then would you like to ask me a question from the exam to see if I was cheating?” Chou asked. “Because if I was cheating, how would I answer them off the cuff?”

“We don’t need that kind of proof,” she said.

“Your logic really is terrible,” Ann said.

“Um, I agree,” another girl said, stepping forward from where she had stopped. She wore a third year pin with her uniform. More distinctive was her light brown hair that seemed like it had come from a long-furred rabbit. “That kind of logic won’t get you in college. You would do better by assisting those with low scores than to bully a high scorer. And by the way, what marked the Edo period?”

Chou told her the answer. “That suit you?”

The senior smiled. “Oh yes, thank goodness. That sounds like what I answered; I suppose I should ask the teacher what I got wrong.”

“How do you know she’s right?” the junior girl said.

“You can search it on your phone,” Ann said, already doing that. “Or check one of the history textbooks. And yeah, looks like she’s right.”

“I was just going to trust her,” the senior said. “As you should for your classmates.”

“Well we’re still going to investigate this,” the girl said, turning to her groupies. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Ugh, why did they have to pick on you?” Ann said, shaking her head. “They could just ignore you, although she’s always been like this.”

“They won’t find anything they’re looking for,” Chou said, then bowed her head to the senior. “Thank you for helping out.”

“You’re welcome,” the girl said with a friendly smile. “I thought about just moving on, but their arguments were too unreasonable. I’m Haru Okumura; nice to meet you.”

“Right, I’m Chou Amamiya, and this is Ann Takamaki,” she said.

Ann nodded. “Yeah, nice to meet you. Hey, you want to hang out? We hadn’t decided what to do.”

“Well…” Haru considered it, then shook her head. “Sorry, but I shouldn’t. Maybe another day; you could help me with the gardening committee later if you’re interested. I hope things get better with the others.” She bowed to them, then left the school.

“It’s good to know that others are starting to believe you,” Ann said, getting interrupted by her phone. “Oh sorry, hang on a moment.” She glanced at it, then said, “It’s my agency, I should take it.”

“Sure, I’ll wait,” Chou said.

Ann took the call and headed out to get better reception. Something about the call puzzled her, but she agreed to it. Once she was off the phone, she said, “They want me to come into a shoot last minute. Apparently Mika requested me to help her out. But she was the one who got mad that I took her sub job, right? Why would she request me now?”

From how she acted, Chou suspected that Mika was up to something like a jerk. But her Persona hinted that Ann wouldn’t like that answer. “Maybe she doesn’t hold a grudge and actually admires you?” she suggested instead.

“Maybe,” Ann said. “Thing is, they told me to come to Sky Tower. I’m not familiar with that area. Do you mind coming with me?”

“No, let’s go,” she said.

They took the train over to the area with Sky Tower, finding a lot of tourists around. Along with the tower, there was a ferris wheel closer to the shore. A guard stood at the entrance to the observation deck, but recognized Ann and allowed them both in. There weren’t many people there, but Chou recognized the cameraman and manager that had been there at the Like Jewels shoot. Near a window, Mika was chatting with a trio of businessmen.

“Hey Ann-chan, thanks for coming on such short notice,” the manager said, coming over to them. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about this before calling you over, but we don’t have a lot of time and Mika-chan insisted. I didn’t think you’d want to do this, so I’ll make sure you get compensated for travel even if you turn this down. It’s for an article in a men’s magazine about the elegance of women.” He shrugged. “But most of those who get the magazine want good pictures.”

“But I told the agency that I didn’t want to do shoots like this,” Ann said. “Even if it is dressed, I’m not comfortable with that kind of modeling.”

“All right, I won’t push it further,” the manager said. “You can stick around if you’d like since you and your friend came all the way out here. I think Mika-chan wants to speak with you.”

“Sure, might as well,” Ann said.

They went to sit on a bench by the windows while the manager went to get the cameraman and Mika to begin the shoot. Mika pouted on being told that Ann wasn’t joining her, but then smiled and carried on with the shoot. With the short dress she was wearing, she wasn’t shy about showing off her legs. She didn’t have a large chest, but Mika knew how to hold herself to emphasize what she did have. The businessmen from the magazine weren’t acting as perverts, but they did ask for some shots of just her legs. Without hesitation, Mika happily agreed and posed seductively for them.

Ann watched and thought for a while. “You know, she’s like the villainess that I used to admire,” she said. “She is confidant about her sexiness and doesn’t give a damn that it could get her in trouble.”

“She might not realize that,” Chou said.

Ann nodded. “True. But do you think I’m wrong? Because modeling jobs like this are common, where the goal is to be sexy. Being sexy is part of being beautiful, but that isn’t what I want. I mean, just being something to lust over. I want to be admired as beautiful and strong, but should I be doing this kind of work as a part of that?”

“When you’re comfortable with it,” Chou suggested. “Sexiness is a part of beauty, but it’s not all of beauty. I’ve met an artist recently and he talked about finding true beauty without a hint of sexual appeal being a part of that.”

“That’s interesting, but I want to have some confidence and sexiness,” Ann said. “Just, you know, with real elegance and grace. This so-called article is supposed to be about elegant women, right? But there’s something missing with her elegance, some kind of…” she snapped her fingers as she struggled to come up with some description, “maturity, I guess? An elegant woman sounds like she’s at least an adult, but Mika comes off as a student trying to look like an adult. Know what I mean?”

“I think I get it,” Chou said. “She’s a hottie, but too quick to show some leg and turn on the sex appeal to fit elegance.”

Ann chuckled. “That’s it. You have good confidence too, to say something like that without worrying about it sounding weird.”

“If that’s weird then I don’t want to be normal,” Chou said, making her laugh more. Chou smiled. “I’d rather be seen for who I am than to take up much of my life trying to be something I’m not.”

“You know, that’s a good idea,” she said.

“Just a bit more like a woman, when I want to be,” she admitted.

“Well you’re not doing bad on that end lately,” Ann said. “I can tell what you’re trying for these days. But then, you can look at her now.” She gestured over to Mika posing. “She is trying hard and some of this doesn’t translate as well outside of pictures. But her whole body is expressing an invitation to admire her, a confidence that she is sexy and beautiful. Like the way she stands is to show off her legs while keeping a strong balance. Actually, that can be hard to do even with the right clothes.”

Some of what Ann was talking about were things that Chou had already noticed. Although, her specialty was in listening and getting people to talk. Her work as Joker was to go unnoticed too. But when she wanted to be noticed, Ann had some good observations. That was probably the better way to go: listen well to get info, go unnoticed when needed, be noticed when needed. Overall, have control over what others paid attention to. And who knew? This could be helpful with Shadows too.

When the shoot was over, the observation deck was opened back up. Mika came over to them. “Hey, did you chicken out of this one?” she asked, acting like it was a friendly question.

“Didn’t you hear from the manager that I’ve decided not to do these kinds of shoots?” Ann said.

“That sounds terribly entitled to pick and choose your jobs,” Mika said. “But I suppose that is the luxury of a part-timer, not someone who wants to be a career model. Then you have to take what jobs are available.”

“I have my reasons,” Ann said. Chou nodded to encourage her. “I don’t want to be only a sex object.”

“But being a sex object is what a model is about,” Mika said. “The managers won’t say it because it’s ugly, but that’s the truth. If you don’t make the most of your appeal, what’s the point? You won’t satisfy your fans.”

“Sex appeal is just a part of beauty,” Ann said. “And if you’re not careful, some men will believe that your sexy photos mean that you’re open to easy sex. I’ve had that happen to me.”

Mika shrugged at that. “So what? If you take things too safe, you won’t get anywhere. There’s so much competition that I don’t see how you can be so lackadaisical about your career. How can you be popular that way?”

“I don’t know, but I’m working on it,” Ann said. “I started working out! Though I’m still researching about diets to find what will work for me. What do you do?”

“A vegetarian diet that avoids anything fattening or generally bad,” she said. “Get everything organic if possible. I’d go for a paleo diet if I had a good enough store for everything.”

“Paleo, like eating like a dinosaur?” Ann asked, confused.

Mika rolled her eyes. “No, it’s eating like people used to back in ancient days. Minimum processing, minimal cooking, just straight from nature. But it’s not easy to follow, so I make a few allowances for an altered diet.”

“That sounds intense,” Ann said, her eyes wide. “And not much fun. There’s so much you’d have to give up on. Is it really worth it?”

“Of course it is!” Mika said, tensing up in anger. “Ugh, I hate people who are natural beauties. They never have to fight their own body in order to attain the look they want.”

“You shouldn’t have to fight your own body,” Ann said, looking concerned.

“Is that healthy?” Chou asked.

Mika nodded, firm in her belief. “Of course it is, because you’re putting nothing artificial or nasty in your body. It is how we all should be eating. And that goes double for someone like me who is a highly visible figure of beauty. I want to be someone others aspire to be, but I don’t have good genetics or famous parents to rely on like you. I have to work hard and do everything I can, just to get where I am.”

“Wow, then you’ve done well,” Ann said, completely sincere by the admiration in her eyes. “And you picked a great agency; they respect us models and make sure we don’t get mistreated, some of the reasons I’ve stuck with them. But while it’s nice to do well, I hope you’re treating yourself well.”

“Ugh, I didn’t talk to you to be friends,” Mika said, an ugly look on her face. “I called you here because you are my rival.”

“I am?” Ann asked, baffled.

“Can you not be such a spoiled airhead?” she asked. “I was going to show you who the better model was and you declined to try at all. Guess I shouldn’t have expected so much out of you. But once I’ve got a better chance, I’ll prove my stuff to you and get everyone to admire me over you.” She then strode off like a queen.

Ann watched her go. “Wow, she’s super serious about this.”

“Super mean too,” Chou said.

Twirling one of her ponytails around her hand, she said, “True, even though she was acting real sweet to the magazine staff. She might be onto something, though. I don’t think I’m spoiled, but I do know that I am lucky. I haven’t had to try very hard as a model, while Mika seems to have worked really hard for this. If she wants me as a rival, I’m going to have to work harder to match her.”

“But do you want her as a rival?” she asked.

“Hmm, I don’t know about that.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m just weird, but I feel like she could use a friend? Or maybe someone to show her that being friendly and more sensitive to others, not two-faced like this, that could help her out too? Because keeping as she is will turn her into a villainess and she might undo her hard work by stepping on too many toes.”

“She does seem like she’s working too hard to get attention and make things go her way,” Chou said. “So you want to show her another way by being the model you want to be?”

“Hey, that sounds pretty good,” Ann said with a smile. “Friendly, honest, sensitive to others… not letting myself fall into the trap of being just an object of lust. That sounds like a strong person to me, a model with true elegance. But I could take a cue from her and start doing my own networking instead of relying on my parents pulling strings for me. I’m not sure how, but I guess the best start would be talking to people in my agency.”

“Just no following crazy dinosaur diets,” Chou said.

Ann chuckled at that. “Agreed. Hey, since we’re here, want to check out the Seaside Park? I’ve heard it’s a popular date spot, but may as well not waste the trip out here.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

It was a fun afternoon, eating the park foods while joking about not being on diets yet. While there, Chou spotted a sign for the World Dance Studio. They were advertising a benefit for women who were victims of sexual harassment and violence, an effort to get their voices taken seriously. She nudged Ann on seeing that. “Hey, look at that.”

“Hmm?” She spotted the sign and brightened. “Oh, neat! Do you think they’d teach the kind of dances Carmen does?”

“Probably,” Chou said.

Ann turned a little more serious when she noticed the charity notice. “Huh… wow, looks like more people notice the problem than I thought. But it’s like that store; they’re the kind of people I’d want to support.”

“They could support you in becoming the kind of person you want to become,” she said. If she saw the same kind of opportunity for herself, Chou knew she’d grab for it. “Don’t you think?”

“Hmm, yeah, they could,” she said, thinking it over. “I mean, if I could dance like Carmen, I’d feel more confidant in being like her.” Ann twirled around and blew a kiss, then giggled. “Sexy and elegant, able to keep control from being stolen from me.”

“You’d steal the hearts of everyone who saw you,” Chou said.

“Oh please, you make it sound like I’m an accomplice to the phantom thieves,” Ann said, then winked. “Well I did help them, at least once.” She went over to the dancers. “Hello!”

“Hello, lovely ladies,” one of the women there said with a smile. “We giving free fifteen minute lessons today on some select dances. Want to take a session?”

“Sure,” Ann said while Chou nodded. “Although actually, we wanted to ask about your Heart of a Survivor program.”

She nodded. “All right, did you need to speak privately about it? We’re giving the lessons in the tent back here, so we could talk there.”

“Yeah, that would be better,” Ann said. Once they were in the tent, she explained a little about Kamoshida blackmailing her and Shiho, trying to get sex from them. “Thing is, I’m also a model, which is how he decided to target me too. I don’t want to give modeling up and my agency has been pretty good about allowing me to decline jobs that make me uncomfortable. But it’s still a worry of it I should continue or not even if I want to.”

“I know, that’s a tough place to be,” the dancer said. “I had a boyfriend who said that because I’m a dancer, it’s practically a sex career and I should have sex with him whenever he demanded it. And those kind of hurtful words stick with you; they nearly made me stop. But with dancing, I learned the confidence to take control of my sexuality and not let anyone tell me I was wrong for not doing what they wanted.”

“That’s what I want to have,” Ann said.

The dancer nodded. “If you want, our dance studio does offer classes with emotional support and reduced fees to girls like you. Our goals are to reduce the stigma that victims carry and help them regain happiness with their lives. Also, we don’t have models involved with our group right now, but if your agency is working with you fairly, we’d love to see about partnering with them.”

Ann smiled and nodded. “Yeah, they’re really great! If you give me some contact information, I can pass it along to my agent and the managers I work with.”

“Great! And what about you?”

“I wasn’t involved with Kamoshida because I transferred into the school a few weeks ago,” Chou said. Feeling like this person and their group were trustworthy (plus Ann would feel more positive about it), she added, “But I am on probation from false charges, because I stopped a drunk man who was trying to force a woman into his car.”

“That is a rough spot to be in too,” the dancer said, shaking her head. “You probably already know, but there’s not much that can be done about that with the justice system as it is. It might be better for you to avoid groups like ours during your probation because an ill-meaning lawyer could claim it was a violation.”

“I figured as much,” Chou said. “Though this free lesson shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“We don’t record who’s taking these freebies,” the dancer said with a nod.

“Your whole situation is just plain awful,” Ann said, concerned for her.

“I’ll overcome it, and be around to support you guys how I can,” Chou said, feeling confidant in that. “Maybe someday I can show it too.”

“I hope you do because you have a great attitude about this,” the dancer said, impressed. Then she nodded to Ann. “And with a friend like her, you’ll be fine too, I have a good feeling about it.”

“Yeah, we aren’t going to give up on each other,” Ann said with a smile.

After getting the dance lesson and showing off for the pedestrians around to help the studio get attention, they split up to head home. The grocery in Yongen-Jaya had some seasonal veggie and fruit boxes; Chou picked up one to try since she was still a little hungry. Then she went up to her room with Morgana to go back to testing out names of Madarame’s students. Hopefully there were some of his victims who were still alive and willing to help with punishing him. Otherwise, they’d need to spend more time training in Mementos.

“Okay, I’ve got two names tonight,” Chou said, then shook her head. “Thirty-six names and only five survivors among them. That’s crazy.”

“Seriously crazy,” Morgana said. “Let’s try these two separately, in case we get a repeat of last time.”

“Right,” she said, putting in the first name. “Let’s hope they’re ready.”

The first woman, Yuina, seemed unsure when she saw her Persona, one of the Lovers arcana. “This is who I could be?”

“Yes, for good or for ill,” Joker said.

“I want to be good for my husband because he accepted me at my lowest,” Yuina said, pacing in thinking it over. “Even if he works so much; I should work hard for him at home. But I want to get back into painting as well, and take care of our children. They are both in school now. I could do this… but if I defeat him in dreams, will that really get rid of the shadow he casts over my life?”

“He will change,” Ace said. “Whether you can shake him is up to you, but your Persona will be there to help you.”

“I see.” Then she nodded. “I’ll try… I’ll help you and make sure my life continues to improve.”

“Thank you, your help is valuable,” Joker said.

The second woman they called in was Rio. She was frightened by appearing on a dark unfamiliar street, going to the streetlight and looking around in hopes of somewhere familiar. Seeing that, Ace went up to her. “Hey, it’s going to be all right,” she said. “We’re here to help you, and ask for your help punishing Madarame.”

“Ye-yeah, that’s what your invitation said, yeah?” Rio asked, gripping the light pole. “I want to stop him, and help Yusuke-kun if he’s still around. A lot of my old friends are gone now because of Madarame, but no one would believe me. Sorry, it’s been hard to find a safe place again.”

Joker came into the circle of light too. “We’ve found a few other surviving students.”

“Who?” she asked, leaning away from her.

Joker stopped at the edge of the light, where Rio could see her but not feel threatened. “Natsuhiko, Itachi, and Yuina. But Itachi won’t be helping us. Yusuke is still living with Madarame.”

“I don’t remember Itachi, but I knew the other two,” Rio said. “That helps, maybe I can find them. So how am I helping you?”

“First, we need to call on your Persona so you have the power to fight Madarame in his dreams,” Joker said, then instructed her in the Persona game.

A Hanged Man Persona appeared for her. Rio paled. “This is who I could be? I know that… I don’t want to be like that…”

“You can make yourself better,” Joker said.

However, Rio didn’t hear her. She was listening to her Persona. “I… I must accept who I am, to have a chance to leave this slump? I suppose that makes sense. I need something to change. Okay, I’ll take stock of where I am so I can get better.” The Persona nodded and vanished into her.

“That’s the spirit,” Joker said.

She heard her this time. “Yeah, thanks. It’s strange, but this Persona should help. I can find my friends and we can help each other, especially once Madarame is dealt with. I’ll be there for you, so call on me whenever.” She then vanished from the dream.

“Phew, that went better than last time,” Ace said, turning to her. “Now we’ve got to get that door unlocked, and awaken that Yusuke fellow.”

“I hope he helps us, because he’ll swing things more in our favor,” she said.

Back in the real world, there was some time left before Leblanc closed. Chou went down to help Sojiro close up, then tried brewing some coffee. She thought it tasted pretty good, but he thought it was bland for what it should be. However, it seemed that he was warming up to her a little. It would take time, but she’d get him to accept her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to note that I don't think the paleo diet is bad; I know some people who've overcome health problems by following it. But one should make an informed decision about if it's the right diet for them.


	26. temptation::moloch

5/18

Chou felt anxious all through the school day. What she and Morgana had planned for today was needed to bring down Madarame. But it was also illegal, just as they’d done before. Of course, the thing to do was not get caught. If things worked out right, they shouldn’t. This plan had a good chance of things going wrong too. That chance ought to make her decide not to do this, if she was a normal person. While she worried, she was also excited for this plan. This would be no ordinary day.

After classes were over, she spotted Ryuji in the halls. “Hey, how’s it going?” she asked.

“Chou,” Morgana hissed softly, trying to deter her from getting distracted.

Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary. “Oh, hey Chou,” Ryuji said. “Sorry, I can’t run with you today. The track team is setting back up in the practice building now that we’re an official team of Shujin again.”

“Ah, then you’re busy as the student manager,” she said.

Ryuji nodded. “Yeah, I’ve pretty much got to do this on my own with just a few of the freshmen members that decided to join. Yamauchi isn’t even lifting a finger to help do this. Oh yeah! I think I’ve got some dirt on him, but I’ve got to get a bit more info first. I might need some help from someone not on the team, so could you back me up if I need it?”

“Sure, just let me know when you need the help,” Chou said.

“Great, thanks! Keep practicing, okay?”

“You too,” she said as he hurried off. Then she whispered towards her bag, “I saw he was too busy to hang out; just checking on him since he seemed preoccupied.”

“Oh, gotcha,” Morgana said. “Then that’s fine.”

Now that they were free for the afternoon, Chou headed off with Morgana back to Madarame’s atelier. The street was quiet as before, thankfully. Chou let Morgana out to stand on a guard rail there while she set the Metaverse app to navigate self. “There is a Palace and a Palace bud at this location that may interfere,” the app noted. “Please take caution.”

“A Palace bud too?” Morgana asked, then lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Hmmm… yeah, it’s not strong because the proper Palace is overpowering it, but the bud is trying to detach from Mementos.”

“Who does the Palace bud belong to?” Chou asked.

“Yusuke Kitagawa,” the app replied.

“Him?!” Morgana asked, trying to get a look at the phone. Chou lowered her phone so she could look. “Guess it makes sense for where it is, but this can be trouble. Since a Shadow Self and a Persona are technically the same kind of being, a Persona user cannot become a Palace owner unless they lose control of their Persona, nor can a Palace owner become a Persona user until their Palace is destroyed. That even counts for this bud state; Itachi may have had a Palace bud too, come to think of it. But the app should have warned you if he did.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time the app has caused problems by misleading us,” Chou said, getting out the disposable gloves. “Let’s take care of unblocking Madarame’s Palace and find a safe room there. Then we’ll decide whether to locate the Treasure there or check out Yusuke’s Palace.”

“Right, that’s probably is the best order of things,” she said.

They transferred to the Metaverse on Chou’s layer, then entered the atelier. While she had not seen the door herself, Morgana had and was able to reassure her that the building looked about the same in all the halls. The hall outside the peacock door felt a little unstable, but she was able to get there and transfer back to the normal realm. They both took a quick look around where they arrived; things seemed quiet. Holding her tail high, Morgana silently moved down one of the halls to search. Chou moved into the small recess where the door was so she wouldn’t be easily spotted. She listened for the sounds of anyone else, especially footsteps on these old floors.

After checking out the halls on this floor, Morgana returned to her. “No one’s on this level; go ahead.”

Chou nodded, then got out a pin to pick the lock. It was large, but similar to those she found on chests in Madarame’s Palace. Fortunately, the technique she used in the Metaverse worked out for the real world too. She got the lock open in one try, removed it from its place carefully, then set it in her bag. In case something came up, that should keep the security in the Metaverse down longer while he tried to get a replacement lock. She just had to get rid of the padlock sometime. Then she opened up the door and went inside.

From the first impression, it looked like another studio along with a storage area. A couple of easels were set up by a small window. One held a painting of the Sayuri; the other held an incomplete copy of Sayuri. From the edges of a few paintings, there were other paintings and copies in the storage shelves. It included the Lost Forest painting of Yusuke’s even though that was on display at the exhibit.

“We still okay?” Chou whispered out into the hall.

“Still okay,” Morgana said.

Trusting her to let her know if something changed, Chou then picked up the complete Sayuri painting with its easel and moved it out into the hall. It seemed fine, so she moved the incomplete copy out into the hall too. Then she beckoned Morgana into the storage studio with her so they could transfer into Madarame’s Palace from within there.

There was a greater resistance than normal in entering this way, like coming across a tempest of rain. But they got in; Joker and Ace found themselves in an unfamiliar sitting area before a grand staircase upward. The peacock doors were nearby, closed for now. “All right, we’re in,” Ace said. “Once up those stairs, we’ll be in the deeper regions of Madarame’s unconscious, much like the tower from the previous Palace. So things will get weird again.”

“But that means we’re close to the goal,” Joker said.

“Yes,” Morgana said, twitching her whiskers. “Not the next floor, but the one past that, that’s what I feel about the Treasure.”

“Then let’s get going,” she said, starting up the stairs.

As they climbed, a faint haze began to creep in. Everything around them glimmered with gold and polish. But the area they first found was surprisingly mundane. There was another sitting area with a security room to one side, a safe room on the other, and doors painted with golden bamboo blocking off access to the rest of the floor. From the cracks around the bamboo door, a peach colored haze curled out like smoke.

“Doesn’t look like that door is locked,” Ace said. “We should check out the security room in case we can do something about the area ahead.”

Unfortunately, a look into the computer there showed that the room only controlled the garden floor below. It named this sixth floor as the Secret Gallery, proclaiming that only those who could see the truth could get past it to the seventh floor of the Gallery of Glory. While Joker tried to find more information, Ace opened up the map on the desk nearby. It seemed as though the Secret Gallery wanted a staff ID to go through it. However, this security station was assumed safe because the peacock doors were still locked. The computer allowed her to print off a staff ID that would work on both of these top floors.

“Right here, this says that the sixth level is for staff only and the seventh level is for special guests of the owner,” Ace said.

Joker picked up the new card from the printer nearby even though it didn’t seem like that kind of printer. “This should work, but only because we came in before he saw the unlocked door,” she said. “We also need to be able to see truth to get through the next puzzle.”

She smiled at that. “In that case, this should be easier than the last big puzzle. If he means we need to find the true paintings among fakes, then we should be able to spot an element of truth ahead that will guide our way.”

Nodding, Joker said, “His mind assumes that only he can tell the truth. Well let’s claim that safe room just in case, then move on ahead.”

On sliding the bamboo doors aside, they found an odd long hallway that twisted around to a sideways glowing blue door. It looked even longer than the exhibit on the floor below. However, Ace must have seen something different. She moved ahead a couple steps, then touched something in front of them. “Another painting.”

“Really?” Joker asked, holding her hand out in front of her. And yes, that was a painting they were in front of.

“I guess the trick of it works better from your height,” Ace said, then pointed out the sideways door. “There’s a gap in the wall out of my reach. Try doing something with that.”

She nodded and tried reaching into the door. There was a hidden handle there, letting her pull the door up to get to an actual door full of blue fog. Passing through that, they came to an even stranger mentalscape. It was full of crooked stairs, sideways paths, and upside down platforms full of hazy blue doors. Paintings hung on strange bars bent at strange angles; some were even melted bars. But the paintings themselves were fine. On top of that, everything seemed to be made of gold. Even the foggy distance had a golden hue.

“What the heck is this?” Ace asked, looking around at the seemingly disconnected pathways. “Normally you don’t get places like this except past the shallow parts of the Collective Unconscious.”

“I think it’s a collection of surrealist art elements,” Joker said. “I’ve seen images like this before in memes and similar things.”

“I guess it is the mind of an artist. Then let’s take a look at these paintings; they hold the key forward like before.”

With Third Eye and Ace’s nose, finding the true paintings among the fakes was simple. They had brighter glows to Joker’s senses over the shadowed fakes. No matter how close the fakes looked to the original, they couldn’t match the truth. By touching the true paintings, the blue doorways turned gold. Ace said that blue doorways would warp them to the entrance or a few other set points, while the gold ones would eventually lead them out of the Secret Gallery.

When they got to the Sayuri, they got a surprise from the real painting. The fakes were all jumbled together. Some had very obvious changes from what Joker had seen before, while others she would have had trouble figuring out without Third Eye. But in a separate spot with the warped bars making an elegant frame around it, there was a very different Sayuri. The swirls of purple fog in the lower third of the painting were gone. Instead, the woman in red was holding onto a small baby wrapped in a white blanket.

“Wait, isn’t this way different from the fakes?” Ace asked, looking back at the jumbled mess. “Yeah, it’s like a totally different picture.”

“Was this one that he took from Yusuke’s mother?” Joker asked, thinking aloud to herself. “I think it is; it looks like how he remembered her. And it was his Shadow Self who was going on about using his own touches to lure unwitting buyers, like making things more mysterious.”

“So he thought the thing that would make this picture profitable was taking out the mother’s baby?” Ace asked, her tail swishing in anger. “That is messed up.”

“There’s so many rotten things going on here.” Something came into Joker’s mind. “Do you think we could remove the true paintings and return them to the world?”

“So the truth returns to the world?” Ace asked. “Hmm, it should work but I don’t think any of these will fit in your bag.”

“Is there a place in the atelier we can store them?” Joker suggested. “With a different lock.”

“Oh yeah, there’s a large studio on the third floor of the building,” she said. “The same kind of lock should do it. We just have to figure out how to get the paintings there.”

“I can think of a way, but I need to see this studio,” she said, touching the real Sayuri to open the way. “Let’s find the Treasure and head there.”

But when they went through the doorway to the exit, she felt someone take her arm. “Now hold on a moment, come here.”

“Joker!” Ace called, getting pulled away from her. “I’ll find you!”

“I trust you,” she said, shaking off the person as soon as they got through the passage.

“I’m not here to cause you trouble, rest assured of that,” he said. It turned out to be the demon taking Madarame’s form. He had taken her out to a separate bit of scenery hanging all by itself with one gold door; walls of fire surrounded the island. “I brought you here because at this level, I don’t have to speak for Madarame. I can speak for myself, and you if you wish. I am Moloch.” He bowed and suddenly had her form, in the Shujin uniform with a pin reserved for honor students.

“You’re another demon,” she said.

“And you’re a trickster who has some devilish things on her mind,” Moloch said, pleased with that. He leaned in closer. “This plan of yours to bring the paintings out of the Secret Gallery isn’t about bringing light to the truth. It isn’t about restoring the honor of strangers. In fact, it’s just the same as Madarame removing the baby from Sayuri: to fuel the interest in your doings as Joker.”

“I can only be recognized as Joker in this realm,” she said. “Moving these paintings does nothing for me.”

“Now don’t be lying, I know humans better than you humans know us demons.” Moloch nodded smugly. “You may hide your identity behind that mask, draw attention with those gloves so that these dreamers can’t focus on things that would pick you out in a waking reality. However, you’re listening for what people say about Joker, aren’t you? You flip through the Phan-site and enjoy all the interest that comes out through there, whether it’s positive or negative. By doing something as incredible as restoring these artworks that have been purged or altered in reality, you build your legend into something incredible. People will be debating how you did this when it is discovered and you are already anticipating how you will relish those debates.”

Joker couldn’t deny that she had thought of that too. But that wasn’t the sole reason she was planning this change even as she wanted to stop Madarame as soon as possible. “But I also want to restore these paintings to their artists and get them recognized,” she said. “There are selfish reasons in there, yes, but those don’t decide everything.”

“Of course, in modern society you need to present a humble exterior,” Moloch said, now between her and the door. She hadn’t noticed him moving like that until then. “But we’re deep in the Metaverse here. No one has to hear about what we speak of right now, not even my host. I can give the power of those you defeat to you; the unworthy should lose, giving their ill-gotten goods to the worthy. Whether it is power or intelligence you wield, the great should not bow to the lowly. Don’t you think you are one of the worthy? I feel as though you are a prisoner of fate through no fault of your own.”

“I can do fine on my own,” Joker said, shaking her head. “I can’t trust you since you’re a demon.”

“That’s too bad,” Moloch said, running his fingers through his imitation of her hair. “You see, angels can turn out to be demons, and demons can turn out to be angels. But I am neither. I am a god who conquers nations. I decide what is good and what is evil. I make sure people can take what they deserve. Are you sure you don’t want to work with me?”

“I’m sure,” Joker said.

He looked puzzled at her denial. “I help people achieve what they want, especially when others would hold them back. If you have the confidence, you should succeed.”

“Not at the cost of the lives of others,” she said, tapping her foot. Behind him, she saw Ace come out of the doorway. Joker tried not to look at her long. “Madarame’s success isn’t even real; it’s all a charade. Are you helping him with that?”

Ignoring her question, Moloch said, “Life is a zero-sum game. If someone wins, someone else loses. Why not make sure you win? Especially at times when the rules and odds are against you. You deserve to win at life, right?”

“Perhaps, but I’ll win on my own,” Joker said.

Although denied, Moloch just sighed. “Well this is a pity. You seem like someone I’d love to work with. But I appreciate our little chat and your puzzle solving. I’ll give you a little something in hopes that you continue to make this Game more entertaining.” He snapped his fingers, turning back into the young Madarame with a wicked smile. “You are dealing with artists and if you want to keep an air of mystery, you’ll need to fool those with a good visual memory.” He then vanished in a plume of fire.

“Why do they think making your mask larger is going to help?” Ace asked, coming over to her.

Joker touched her mask, finding that the right half was now halfway down her cheek. “Well he did have a point in that an artist might recall what they saw in dreams better. Much of what that Moloch was saying was excuses, though.”

“You handled it well,” Ace said, glancing around. “Nothing here, huh? Well I spotted the exit of this gallery, with some other good news! Come on, come look.”

“Sure.” They headed through the door and ended up in a hallway with tall blue walls. There were paintings along both walls. This time, there were no duplicates and they all had the air of truth. “So these are the remaining originals.”

“Seems so,” she said, then put her hands to her mouth and chuckled. “This is gonna be great! We’re close to the Treasure and we can surprise everyone with the real art.”

“Hopefully we can pull this off,” Joker said. “Now let’s go check out the Treasure.”

“Yeah!” They headed through the last gold gate.

They came out of another mural with some visual trickery to it, a spring garden with cherry trees in full bloom. The hidden door they came through was a gate to a small patch of flowers. In the room itself, there was a grand staircase curving around the wall to somewhere over them; the stairs and railings were made of gold while a red carpet rolled upwards. Over to the right, an ornate cage elevator sat open. And to the left, a low table was decorated with traditional tea set and a matching vase holding a blossoming branch.

“This might look nice if there wasn’t so much gold,” Ace said. “And what’s with the cage?”

“The top floor was supposedly for VIPs,” Joker reminded her. “I’d guess that’s an express elevator from the lower floors somewhere.”

“VIPs, huh? There might be a treasure or two down there if it takes special permission to get here.”

“But the main Treasure is upstairs, right?”

She nodded. “Right. Maybe we can check out those treasures later.”

There was a guard pacing around the top of the staircase, one with a powerful red aura. Fortunately, the guard was easily distracted with Ace’s slightshot trick and they got through the door to the Gallery of Glory. The halls returned to neutral tones, something their eyes were grateful for. But all the pictures here were framed with gold and jewels. Glass cases held onto certificates, ribbons, signed photos, and other memorabilia. As for the pictures themselves, some were paintings done in traditional Japanese styles while others were photos of beautiful gardens, rooms, and antiques. Each picture had a large plaque or two talking about them. A glance at one told Joker that the photos were all of Madarame’s country house and the possessions he kept there. Towards the end, the plaque boasted that none of his students had stepped foot in his country house.

“There we go,” Ace said, hidden in the shadow of a large vase by a path heading into a central exhibit room. Joker followed to hide near her. “There’s the Treasure, in that cage of lasers.”

Again, it was a hazy orb floating in the air. There were enough lasers that there was no way to slip inside. Even if there was space, there were four high level guards patrolling around the central exhibit. That space had a circular layout without much for cover near the Treasure. “That looks tough,” Joker said.

“Hmm, yes…” Ace said, thinking. “I think I see a way; look up in there.”

She didn’t see much at first. But when she ducked her head, Joker spotted something. “The top of that cage doesn’t have lasers; I can’t see much past that.”

“I can see some catwalks up there,” she said. “There should be some way to get there.”

“That would make sense for a museum,” Joker said. If they had such strong security for that central display, a catwalk would let staff check on the displayed work.

“Let’s peek around.”

A hidden room was tucked away behind a large painting that could be pulled away as a door. As it was out of sight, it was filled with general maintenance equipment, storage cabinets, and a security station. The security had some interesting settings here. Opening the gates was standard; the lights could be adjusted, even shut off. While there was an option to shut off lasers, it did nothing to the central cage. The cameras showed that the other lasers were in the outer halls of the Gallery of Glory.

“Who’s messing around in here?!” someone bellowed from outside.

“Come on,” Ace hissed, blending into the shadows and jumping up to the top of some cabinets. Joker followed her up. While there, they could hop right up to the catwalks. Leaving Ace to that, Joker hid on top of the cabinet and watched as the guard Shadow came in.

The guard peered around with its flashlight, its baton at ready to attack. On spotting no one, the guard went over to the security computer to turn the lights back on. It didn’t do anything more as Joker could see a gate still lifted on a monitor. Once the Shadow was gone, she stepped up to the catwalks and followed Ace over to one in the middle. An upper storage area was over the outer hall, while the catwalks were open right over the central display. A hefty hook hung above the Treasure; its chain indicated that it was connected to a reel on the wall of the backstage area.

Ace was perched on the end of a catwalk right over the Treasure. “Heh heh, here we go. I’m nimble enough to get down this chain and snag the materialized Treasure. If we shut the lights off, we could get it out of here unseen.”

“How are two of us going to pull this off?” Joker asked. “The lights won’t be off for long, plus I’d have to be operating the security and the chain. The Shadows could easily interrupt us.”

“In a perfect scenario, we could do this,” Ace said, her tail twitching. “But now that you said it… it is tight timing with just us two. We’ll have the victims distract the owner, but they wouldn’t distract all the Shadows.”

“We wouldn’t want to leave them overwhelmed either,” she said. “It would be like last time too, right? The owner’s ego inflates the Treasure and the Treasure empowers the owner. Stealing it would make their fight easier, but their fight could make stealing the Treasure easier.”

Ace rubbed her chin. “Hmm… let’s lower the chain and see how they take that. If it’s possible… go try it. And keep that door in mind.” She pointed across the catwalks to an archway with blue mist inside.

“Gotcha,” Joker said, going to hop back down into the backstage area. The guard had moved away from the entrance to the room; it had even put the painting back in place. So while the crank made some noise, the guards outside shouldn’t hear it. But there might be a guard in here when security got heightened as a result of the calling card.

When she got back up on the catwalks, the chain was down to just above the Treasure. The guards were pacing around still. But once Ace grabbed onto the chain to test out its strength, two of the guards came alert. “Hey, who’s messing around up there?!”

Ace quickly let go and hopped across to another catwalk. Joker followed her over to the gateway. On passing through, they found another set of catwalks above the flowing gold of the sand garden. There were some structures Joker could better see up here that let them hop down into the unguarded sand garden and sprint over to the safe room. While they’d gotten away this time, the plan still worried her.

“We could see what just taking the Treasure would do,” Ace said, hopping on the table and stretching her arms. “But then we’ve promised the students their revenge. How should we handle this?”

Having thought it over, she suggested, “How about taking the Treasure to weaken Shadow Madarame, then calling the students in? Taking the Treasure might be enough to make them realize their crimes, but we know that my power will do that for certain. And due to Madarame’s age, we don’t want to be experimenting too much with his Palace.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she said. Then her eyes sparkled, quite literally. “So how about we check that VIP elevator for some smaller treasures?”

Joker chuckled and rubbed Ace’s head. “Sure thing. How’re you doing? Since we couldn’t fight much, we could train in Mementos.”

“I’m fine, and that sounds practical,” she said. “We need to get tougher.”

With the staff card, they were able to activate the VIP elevator to reach a different area of the first floor. It led to a sitting area surrounded by giant paintings of favored students. There was a locked chest there, along with an unlocked chest. On the table in the middle, there was a shimmering vase. There had been other vases, pots, and other items that held little treasures they could sell for money outside the Metaverse. They had a shine to them when she used Third Eye. This vase shone without special means.

Joker went to unlock the one chest while Ace made a beeline for the shiny vase. “Woooow, have you ever seen a vase like this? You could make a lamp outta that shine.”

“I’d believe that,” she said, getting the lock open. There was a sturdy vest inside, one that seemed like it could be good for defense. It could be better than what she had with this costume. And as she thought it, the vest in her hand changed into the original. The unlocked chest had some more odd items, the beads along with something that looked like colorful taffy.

A crash came from behind her, followed by Ace calling, “Get it!”

Grabbing her knife, Joker turned around and spotted something glittering and zooming along the floor. She waited until it was heading her way, then jumped to attack. Her knife struck something hard; the glittering thing got knocked to the floor. Once the diamond stopped there, a ghostly thing emerged. It wasn’t like the demons, instead being a generic ghost shape.

“Ah, you’ve bested me,” the diamond ghost said. “Then, I am yours. I cannot be sold nor can I fight, but if you find a way to draw out my power, that will also be yours.” It then vanished.

“What happened to it?” Ace asked, coming up to her. “I just poked the vase and it turned into a big fist-sized diamond.”

“Search the first floor!” someone called in the distance. “There’s been some disturbance, can’t tell where.”

“Oh shoot,” Ace said, glancing back at the closed gate that led towards the lobby.

“Let’s scram,” Joker said, running back to the elevator.

Once Ace was with her and hidden in shadows, she sent the elevator back up and hid as well. They briefly saw a Shadow Guard run past the gate; at least they weren’t too bright. Back near the Secret Gallery, they started up the stairs to the Gallery of Glory. The sound of footsteps caused them to hide near one of the turns. “There’s been a call to search the first floor,” one guard said.

“Don’t they have the key to the gate?” the one following asked.

The two guards passed them right by since they were holding still. “No, only one approved guard has that key, besides the master.”

“Well then shouldn’t the VIP sitting room be clear?”

“We must be thorough, for Madarame’s sake! Surely you remember the mess from that black masked thief.” They went into the elevator and headed down. Not wasting time to talk, Joker and Ace headed up the stairs to the safe room there.

“Phew, that was close,” Ace said, hopping up on the table as usual. “He seems to have a strong image of guards, since these ones have such personality.”

“But what were you doing poking that vase enough to break it?” Joker asked. “You know we should stay stealthy.”

“Yeah,” she said, her ears tilted down. “But you saw that vase; it was so beautiful, wonderfully detailed up close. I was going to suggest taking it with us, to help decorate your room. But when I poked it, it turned into gold dust and the treasure demon.”

“A treasure demon?” She called out the so-called demon, now knowing that its name was Regent. The spirit didn’t appear, but the large sparkling diamond did.

“Right,” Ace said, her eyes going right to the diamond. “There are many real life treasures that capture the imagination of people, so these demons appear in the Metaverse. So many people want the treasures that these demons are actually quite shy. They hide as normal objects in the Metaverse, though they can’t hide all signs of how special they are. They don’t do much harm on their own, although they can empower others. And the powerful passions that their real life counterparts invoke can distort humans just the same, which makes them demons rather than spirits. Did you make it a Persona?”

“Seems so,” she said. “But it seems odd; it can’t fight and Regent says it can’t be sold. But it has some hidden power.”

Ace poked the diamond. “Hmm, maybe it will be useful in your Persona fusions? I’d try that.”

Joker nodded. “I can find an entrance to the Velvet Room outside Mementos. But first, we need to check out that studio you talked about.”

“Sure, let’s get back to the real world.”

Through her layer of the Metaverse, Chou and Morgana got back to Madarame’s work room. The atelier was still quiet, letting them get upstairs to the top level of the building. Things up here were dustier, although it seemed the floors still got swept. The studio was a large room with old windows letting light in. A plaster model stood in the center of the room, surrounded by easels that were still standing. At the walls, models in other poses were there to be used. One of them even had a plain white cloth wrapped around it like a kimono.

“There’s plenty of room here for us to transfer the paintings to the real world,” Morgana said, pleased with it. “And it looks like we can lock this room.”

“Maybe with the same kind of lock,” Chou suggested, going over to the largest window in the room. As she was still wearing the gloves, she opened it up. There was no protective screen in it. “If we could find it, that’d be funny.”

“Heh, yeah,” Morgana said, following her over. “And the window?”

She chuckled. “Make them think we got in or out this way. Also funny.”

“I like how you think,” she said. “Meow-ha-ha!”

“Well let’s get going now so they don’t catch us here.”

When they got into Mementos at the Shibuya station, the door to the Velvet Room was closed with neither of the wardens outside. Chou picked the lock, thinking it was strange. On entering, she found Igor’s table unattended. One of the girls was sitting on the carpet nearby reading a large book. She looked over startled on hearing Chou shift the chains in moving.

The other appeared in front of the door, easier to tell she was Caroline. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

“I came here to do some executions before training,” Chou said. “What’re you doing?”

Justine made the book vanish and stood up. “We were given no warning that you might come in today, since our master is away.”

“Never mind that, how’d you even get in?” Caroline asked. “The door should’ve been locked… so why’d you come in when it should’ve been obvious that it was unavailable?!”

“The door was there, so I came in,” Chou said, acting like that was the obvious thing.

“What do we do?” Justine asked, coming up to the cell door with her clipboard in hand.

“You two handle the executions, right?” Chou said when both of them seemed stuck. “I could use your help because I’m trying to get stronger to clear a Palace.”

Justine put a hand to her chin. “That is our duty…”

“But our Master isn’t here,” Caroline said. “He would’ve told us that you’d stop by; he usually does.”

Her Confidant link with Igor had been severed by Arsene. Perhaps due to that, Igor couldn’t keep close tabs on her anymore. He wasn’t doing anything here, but Chou needed the help of Caroline and Justine. “I have a contract as a wild card,” Chou said. “And I’m acting as the Trickster in the game your master is running. I’m supposed to be unpredictable, correct?”

“That doesn’t excuse misbehaving!” Caroline said, stamping a foot down.

“But she does have a point,” Justine said. “As attendants of the Velvet Room, we are also bound by her contract. She might even be able to help us with that list.”

“What list?” Chou asked.

“It’s none of your business,” Caroline said, although not as harshly as usual. “Although, you should be able to help us with it. We were going to ask our master about it.”

“But it has more to do with her than him,” Justine said. “So?”

“I suppose,” Caroline said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I suppose, if you help us with the list, we’ll go ahead and execute Personas for you even without the master here.”

“It’s a deal,” Chou said as a chime sounded in her head.

“That’s our line,” Justine said, flipping some pages on her clipboard. “But never mind. This list has shown up among the documents in my possession, but neither of us remember it or know its purpose. It is a list of Personas with particular skills.”

Caroline nodded. “They won’t be easy to come by, inmate. You’ll have to master the art of fusion to get most of them.”

“Should you acquire these Personas, we would like to see them,” Justine said. “We’ll find a way to reward you for doing so.”

“All right, what’s on the task list?” Chou asked.

“That’s a good way to think of it,” Caroline said in approval.

Justine checked the page. “The first one is simplest. We need you to bring us a Jack Frost with Mabufu. Once you have it, speak with us.”

“Got it,” Chou said. “I do have a question for you.”

“What is it?” Justine asked.

“I got this treasure demon called Regent that apparently has hidden powers,” she said. “Do you know what it does?”

The twins looked at her for a moment. “I see,” Justine said, shifting her pages again. “That’s a very rare Shadow. It does something special when fused, but you should see it for yourself.”

“All right, let’s see what it does,” Chou said, deciding to fuse Regent with Arsene.

While there wasn’t an accident this time, Arsene came back as himself, this time with Maeiga and Makouka. He felt a lot more powerful as well. “Our vow will continue, as before,” he said, tipping his hat as he reappeared.

“Hey, what’s going on?!” Caroline asked, swinging her baton down. “That’s not what it’s supposed to do!”

“It’s not?” Chou asked.

“Treasure demons should move Personas up or down in their Arcana rank, not remain the same,” she said, frustrated.

“Caroline,” Justine said, shaking her head.

“Oh, uh,” Caroline scratched her head. “Sorry, I blew that. It-it was an accident!”

“It was out of the ordinary, so I suppose the information won’t hurt,” Justine said, then looked up at Chou. “How are you keeping Arsene like this?”

Arsene chuckled, a smug look on his face. Chou shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe because he was the first I called?”

“That shouldn’t affect this,” Justine said. “But as long as he remains a strong Persona through these…” she scratched her head, “accidents, I suppose, it’s fine since he won’t hold you back.”

She wasn’t able to get the Jack Frost in that fusing session, nor later when they were ready to go home. That was despite how she’d picked up several new Personas through fighting in the floors of Mementos. In one battle, she had seen a Jack Frost. It hadn’t known Mabufu, but now she knew it was of the Magician arcana. That might help her later figuring out how to get it.

They were tired by the time they got done in Mementos, so decided to relax at home.

* * *

‘Another day of school, tiring but normal. Ryuji seems to have his hands full in earning trust back from his teammates. Maybe I’ll hang out with him sometime soon to give him a break.

Also, I looked up this Jack Frost character on hearing about him and found some mascot-type art of him that was adorable! So that’s where the new stickers here are from.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did swap the demon associated with Madarame; Azazal is associated with teaching human things, including things that may be unwise. But I felt he could be better used elsewhere. Moloch is a god who demanded human sacrifices, including children and infants, often by fire.


	27. Non-Person

5/18

Back home, Yusuke started the rice cooker for his dinner. What else did he have? He needed to be careful since grocery delivery wasn’t going to come until the weekend. Even the rice was low now. There were some canned bean sprouts and a bit of tofu. It wasn’t much, but it’d be good enough without wasting too much food.

He headed upstairs to check on the studio since Chou would be coming over tomorrow. Before he got there, he spotted something odd out of the corner of his eye. There were a pair of easels out in the hall where they shouldn’t be. Yusuke looked up and saw something that nearly made his heart stop. It was the Sayuri, and it was two of them.

Wasn’t that painting stolen? One of them was unfinished. It could be one of those that Madarame was copying to sell… but wasn’t the theft of this painting the source of his sorrow? Yusuke moved closer to get a good look. The complete painting was a perfect copy. Or, was it the original? The brushwork was superb, but it didn’t match what Yusuke knew as Madarame’s own work. Unless, was it because it had been painted when he was younger?

Unless it was another of his lies…

Not sure what to think, Yusuke looked aside and noticed where the paintings had come from. Madarame’s studio was open. He shouldn’t go in there. But looking back at the Sayuri, Yusuke felt a twist of anger in his gut. How much was Madarame lying about this painting? He claimed the copying was to recapture his muse. But Yusuke knew the copied paintings were sold, for astounding amounts of money. When Natsuhiko had still been around, he had shared some records of Madarame owning another house with a mystery woman. But the budget for the food here was tight.

And if Yusuke didn’t come up with another work soon, Madarame would take away some of his food allowance. He could also do so when this was discovered. Thoughts of that made him feel faint, or that could be because he hadn’t eaten much today. He took out his phone and called Madarame.

It took a minute before he picked up. “What is it?” he asked, sounding short on patience.

Feeling uneasy, he said, “It’s, um, someone seems to have broken into the atelier. Your studio is unlocked.”

“What?!”

Looking at the door, he noticed something else. “The padlock is gone, and two of the paintings are out in the hall.”

Madarame grumbled. “This is… Yusuke, check around the building and see if there’s anything else out of place. I’ve got an important meeting in a moment. I’ll take care of things when I get back. Lock the front door if you want, but don’t go in my studio.”

“Of course, Sensei,” he said, bowing his head.

Walking around the atelier first, he checked around carefully. Nothing seemed to be missing or messed up aside from the door on the first floor, nor the second. But on the third floor, he found something else odd: the large drawing studio had an open window. What could they have taken? Maybe a smaller work as the art pieces were the most valuable things here. Everything else was old and relatively worthless.

Yusuke hesitated outside the large studio for a moment before going in to check closer. Even when he went in, he could swear he felt a chill. Nothing seemed to be missing here, nor anything odd by the open window. There were unpleasant memories here, though. Good ones too, of drawing with older students back when he wasn’t in an art school. But the unpleasant ones overpowered everything else. There had been suicides in this room. Madarame ordered that those names were not to be spoken again, nor the ones who left here alive. As far as he was concerned, they were non-persons.

And if he didn’t have something good soon, Yusuke might be a non-person too.

Not wanting to stay, he left to head back to the kitchen to lock the front door and finish making his dinner. He could make the portrait of Chou work. That is, if he could capture what made her interesting. It might take some more work to make sure he had it. But Madarame would want something soon…

Once he had his supper together, he took it over to his bedroom. He had few possessions of his own: some pencils and erasers, school uniforms, some other clothes. There were also a number of sketchbooks in a bookcase, full of his sketches. Yusuke pulled out the most recent one to see if there was a quick project to complete while he tried to get Chou’s portrait done. With that, he could take his time with the portrait and still fulfill the quota.

Having the sketchbook open reminded him that many of these sketches were similar. They were things that he dreamed of lately, being stuck in this house wanting to get outside. But the layout wasn’t right. He could be on the first floor and end up on the third (where there were ghosts and more signs of their passing). There would be windows that led to other rooms, or crying somewhere out of sight. Whenever he finally got to the front door, he would hear Madarame behind him.

“I’ve given you the chance to succeed. I’ve given you a home when no one wanted you; I’ve given you clothes, food, any art supplies you desired. Why would you betray me? Why would you want to leave me? With all the money and care I’ve poured into you, you are my art.”

Yusuke rubbed his head, looking over the distorted rooms and halls that he had drawn trying to capture these dreams. If he could get it right, the nightmares would disappear. Right? Madarame’s other students would sometimes talk about that, before they died or vanished. It didn’t seem to be working with himself yet. But maybe he hadn’t gotten the drawings right…

The problem with that theory was that he had page after page of these dream images, almost filling this book. What would these drawings look like if he pinned them all on the wall? They weren’t bad drawings, just troubling to him and anyone else who saw them. Would Madarame accept that? It would be something… but did he really want to share this nightmare?

No… he’d need another idea for this quota. Maybe in one of his older books.

In the evening, he heard Madarame talking and arguing with the security company he worked with. There was no chance of calling the police about this; Madarame didn’t trust them. After listening for a while, Yusuke discovered that only one thing had been stolen: the padlock to that peacock door.

“What kind of thief only steals a lock?” Yusuke wondered to himself.

It wasn’t something he could wonder about for long since he needed to get a work completed soon.

* * *

5/19

Chou intended to leave school once it was out to meet up with Yusuke, only taking a moment to go to the bathroom and change her skirt for pants. However, Ms. Kawakami spotted her coming out and told her to go to the student guidance office with her first. After a sigh, she said, “I’m sorry about this; I don’t believe this accusation, but some other students were raising a stink about it.”

“Is it about cheating on mid-terms?” she asked. “They’ve already bugged me about it.”

“Right, that’s it,” she said, then shook her head. “It seems clear to me that it’s simple jealousy, so we’ll try to clear this up. I know you don’t have any leniency, so it’d be a pity if you got expelled over something petty like this.”

“Right,” Chou said, rubbing her head.

The guidance counselor was a man who immediately gave her a look like she wasn’t worth his time. Over in the corner, there was a woman who was typing quickly into a laptop. The man was quick to say, “We’ve had reports that you cheated on mid-terms. If they turn out to be true, this is the end of your time here.”

“Got any proof of cheating?” Chou said, seeing no reason to bend to him if he was going to start this way.

“Don’t be cheeky with me,” the counselor snapped.

“I’m not, just asking you the same thing as I did of those who are accusing me,” she said.

“I also want some proof of this supposed cheating,” Ms. Kawakami said. “I was watching her and the other students during exams; there were no signs of cheating from her.”

“The fact that she was the top scorer of the second year students is suspicious enough,” the counselor said. “It would be best if you simply admit to it.”

A flare of anger sparked in Chou; she had to remind herself that this wasn’t worth getting mad over even if it was too much like what happened before. “I got my score honestly.”

“A high score is no proof,” Ms. Kawakami said. “Is Kamani one of those accusing her? Because I’ve heard him complaining about missing out on being awarded an honors student pin because of those scores. He might be accusing who he sees as the easiest person to blame.”

“Because she’s most likely to have cheated,” the counselor said. “He was one of those who signed the request for investigation, but it was turned by Inoue, always a reliable and trustworthy girl.”

“I don’t think she’s in my homeroom, so how would she know?” Chou asked.

“She’s not,” Mrs. Kawakami said. “She is a part of student council as the vice-president and in charge of second-year student activities. Even so, she’d have no way to know who was cheating in another homeroom. Unless you have some proof, I don’t believe this cheating happened.”

“Do you have proof she didn’t?” he asked.

The woman at the laptop paused in her work. “Are you listening to yourself?” she asked him. “Why are you so quick to doubt her? And unreasonably so.”

“She is an established troublemaker we can’t be soft with,” the counselor said. “She’s on probation and had special permission to join our school, although many of us believe it was a mistake.”

“I don’t recall her as one of those with regular guidance sessions,” the woman said.

“She’s not,” the man said. “Why would we do that?”

She sighed. “Has anyone told you that you’re a terrible counselor?”

He tried to hide it, but he flinched. “Wh-what are you talking about? I’m here to help students willing to work hard, not those that would bring the school shame.”

“I was told that you accepted me to prove that you could reform a student like me,” Chou said. “So why don’t you test me to see if I could have cheated? Ask me anything from the mid-terms.”

“I told you not to be cheeky,” the male counselor said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“You really are terrible,” the woman said, turning to them. “What is our reputation going to mean if you did nothing to help her?”

“I did not agree to this!”

“Are you going to do as she asked?” Kawakami said. “I believe it is a reasonable suggestion.”

When the male counselor sighed, Chou said, “This is exactly what happened with the other students who confronted me. They refused to test me out too.”

The woman shifted her glasses. “Is this your normal means of working? Taking the easy path and only helping students who don’t take much effort? Do you even have a copy of the second-year mid-terms?”

After a moment, Kawakami crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the male counselor. “Well I don’t have a copy on hand, but I can ask about a lesson for next week. So Chou, of certain short poems, is waka or tanka the correct term?”

That was a potential trick question. “They’re both understood to be the name,” she said. “But technically, tanka is a form of waka, with choka being a long form of a waka.”

The teacher nodded. “Correct, and name twelve words that you’d use in a summer themed poem.”

Just twelve? She named them easily. “I can recite a summer poem too,” she added, giving that to them too.

“Very good, you’ve got the concept,” Kawakami said, smiling at that. “She wouldn’t need to cheat to get that kind of score.”

“You could have coached her since she is in your class,” the male counselor said.

“So ask me something else,” Chou said. “Math, science, history, English, or even basic psychology since I’ve been looking into that lately.”

“I told you to stop being cheeky,” the male counselor said, hitting the arm of his chair. “Just admit to cheating so we can be done with this.”

Chou shook her head. “No. That’s an easy lie, but still a lie.”

“If the truth is that you didn’t cheat, what do you think caused these accusations of cheating?” the female counselor asked. “And what do you think of your accusers?”

“I pity them,” Chou said. “There could be a few reasons behind it. Our society puts a lot of pressure on people of all ages to appear successful. Those accusing me, especially those who just missed out on honors, are likely being pushed hard to get top notch grades by their parents and are searching for some excuse for not doing perfectly. Others may feel that their reputation and pride is at risk because a transfer student scored better than them, especially a student who has a strong stigma attached to them. They’ll take an easy excuse of blaming someone else rather than looking at their studies and figuring out their own weaknesses. It’s difficult to face the truth.”

“So you’ll claim these accusations are merely others who don’t want to look bad?” the male counselor scoffed.

“It may not be the only reason, but I’m sure it’s there,” Chou said, briefly feeling nervous since she was talking a lot. But she wanted to stand up for the truth here. “ _The tall poppy is the one that gets cut down._ But we are people, not poppies. I will not compromise my efforts because other people want to make themselves look better.”

“Now why do you think she would cheat mid-terms when she can give an off the cuff answer like that?” Ms. Kawakami said. There was subtle feeling, like a reassurance of giving a good answer to a confidant. Perhaps her teacher was one? She didn’t seem like an outcast.

“Well she has to perform perfectly now, and this will be investigated,” the male counselor said.

“I doubt you’ll find solid evidence,” the female counselor said. “It’d be a waste of time. Now, Amamiya-san? I believe that if the school really wants to prove they can help potential problem students succeed, you should meet up with me at least a few times. Do you mind that?”

“No, that’s fine,” Chou said.

Ms. Kawakami nodded. “I think that’s sensible, so I’ll give her permission to visit with you during my language class. Amamiya, I’ll give you the assignments at the end of the day, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions about them.”

“I’ll do that,” Chou said.

The female counselor smiled. “Excellent! When are those classes for you?”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be focusing on Kamoshida’s victims,” the male counselor said, irritated at her interruptions.

“Well you clearly don’t care to help her, even though it’s part of your job,” she said.

“If that’s a concern,” Chou said, “I was on his confession list and I’ve confirmed through trustworthy sources that he leaked information about my probation to the whole school. That’s made my time at school more difficult than need be.”

“That’s sufficient reason for me to meet with her,” the female counselor said.

On confirming a schedule with Ms. Sonomura, Chou and Ms. Kawakami left the office. “What a pain,” Ms. Kawakami muttered. “But I have to say, you were quite impressive there. Perhaps not the best attitude to have; that could get you in trouble.”

“He didn’t have a good attitude either,” she said.

“True, he’s always been a slacker like this,” she said. “Just don’t push your luck, okay? I’ve got places to be, unless you had any questions?”

Chou shook her head. “No, and I have to be going myself.” She wouldn’t promise to not push her luck, though. What fun was that?

Although this cheating thing was getting tiring, she felt cheered by the results and had a spring to her step as she made her way to Shibuya. Chou arrived earlier than Yusuke again, so she sent a message to the reporter asking if she had time to meet up in the evening. Morgana hopped out of the bag and paced around the entrance. “Hey, I’m going to see where entering the Metaverse in that big studio room sends me. I can scout out a path between there and the Secret Gallery too.”

“Sure, be careful on your own,” Chou said.

“I’ll be fine,” Morgana said, curling her tail in pride. “You might try to get him to talk about our deeds yesterday.”

“I’m also digging for info for that reporter,” she said. Then she shrugged. “We’ll have to see how Yusuke cooperates there.”

Morgana nodded. “Good plan, she might be useful. Especially if she hears about the art returning! Lots of people will be interested in hearing of that, I bet.”

“That’s a pretty safe bet,” Chou said, then got a couple of texts from Ohya. “All right, we’re meeting with her in a bar in Shinjuku tonight.”

Hearing that, Morgana’s ears tilted down. “A bar? Ooo, I hate the smell of alcohol.”

“Do you want me to take you back home then, or look around Shinjuku yourself?” she offered, recalling how Morgana had reacted to that drunk outside Leblanc. “I don’t know the neighborhood.”

“I’ve heard of Shinjuku in the Metaverse,” she said. “Like it was full of lights that never go out and it’s popular with adults. I’d like to go see, even if I avoid the bar itself.”

“All right, but you might need to be more careful there if you’re searching around,” Chou said.

Morgana got back in her bag when they spotted Yusuke coming. He tugged on the door knob before unlocking it. “We should be careful; someone broke in here yesterday.”

“That’s scary,” she said. “Do we need to look around first?”

He hesitated at that. “Well… this place is old and the floors creak easily. Maybe a quick look, but I’ll handle that. You go on to the same room as before; don’t go anywhere else or we could get in trouble.”

“Sure thing,” Chou said. But since he stayed to look around the first floor, she peeked in at the hall to Madarame’s studio. The paintings were gone. Due to the creaky floors, she didn’t dare go see if he’d replaced the lock yet. Instead, she went to the studio, let Morgana out on her mission, and took out her Tarot book to study.

When he came in, Yusuke said, “Things seem fine today, but I still locked the door just in case. Um, that book looks larger than the one you had before.”

Chou nodded. “Yes, but you hadn’t started on the painting yet. This is a book I’m reading slower to study it thoroughly. I thought it might work out better for you.”

“Ah, yes, that would be good,” he said, smiling at it. He was getting a large canvas on the easel. “I was thinking of taking a bit more time to make sure I had this right. The composition should work; I’m just not sure I can do it justice. But, I have to get started with the painting soon too.”

“Is it because of trying to get an androgynous look right?” she asked. “I know that the smallest sign can make people decide whether someone is male or female.”

“Actually, yes, that’s one obstacle,” Yusuke said. “I looked some things up for this and it turns out that some people can distinguish men from women by small things, like the shape of their lips. I could potentially send mixed signals, where getting the right balance to create mystery is key…”

“Then it would make sense to take some time,” Chou said. “I don’t mind as long as this is just two or three times a week.”

“Ideally, I would take my time,” he said, frowning a little as he looked over the canvas. “But I have an obligation to Sensei; I’ve been doing mostly schoolwork with my art. I want to do my best for him…”

“Can you do your best when in a hurry?” she asked.

Yusuke shrugged at that. “Sometimes, if inspiration strikes hard. But…” he shook his head and exchanged the canvas for a large sketchpad. “I really should do my best for Sensei. Sorry, I hope this isn’t an inconvenience for you.”

“Nah, it’s some free reading time,” she said.

“True.” He took some pencils and was soon drawing.

When she reached card four of the Major Arcana, she had a feeling like something about it matched… to Yusuke? Chou activated Third Eye and confirmed that it was true. If Yusuke was a confidant, he would be The Emperor. She read through the entry on the Emperor twice to get a better idea of what he might be like.

* * *

On checking out Madarame’s studio, Morgana noted that the lock had not been replaced. Not that it mattered anymore, since they knew about safe rooms past the giant peacock doors. But Madarame wasn’t around either. Morgana peeked around out of curiosity. Among the counterfeits, she found six of the Sayuri aside from the two that Chou had moved last time. A paper posted on the wall listed people who were interested in buying Sayuri, what sell dates were (past and future), and what prices were offered. Morgana wasn’t sure about what the prices meant, but they looked considerably more than what the gold medal had sold for.

But their goal was to get the paintings to the real world. This room wasn’t as useful, so Morgana left and headed upstairs. She wasn’t quite sure how Chou’s app worked, but she knew how she got between layers of reality. It was turning pages and moving to another section of a book. If she knew names, it was easy to reach that person’s layer even if the cognition was distorted.

She ended up in the large exhibit that only held infrared traps and the giant bamboo paintings. There were several guards pacing around again, so this wasn’t a great spot to end up. However, the entrance that was unguarded was still open. There were also a good number of safe rooms in this Palace. That was a bit odd given that the shack this place was based on was owned by him. Perhaps it was a result of it being a museum? He might not have complete control over all spaces of a museum.

Ace checked through a route between safe rooms near the Gallery of Glory and the infrared maze. In the maze, there was a nook that the guards didn’t seem to be going into. The real-world counterpart of that nook was a corner of the large studio. It would take a lot of trips, but the painting thefts should be doable. Since they’d be going in and out of the Metaverse, they’d need to make extra sure it was a day when Madarame and Yusuke wouldn’t be there.

As she was considering what to do next, a call came to the radio of a guard nearby. “There’s been a breakout from the Forgotten Zone! Come quickly to help contain the anxiety!”

“Yes sir!” the guard answered, hurrying off.

“Forgotten Zone, eh?” Ace said to herself, hurrying after the guard. This might have some useful information.

It was right outside the infrared maze, a hidden door in a hall that hadn’t been useful to her and Joker (although now that she was here, she spotted a locked chest they’d missed). There was a giant of a man there, wielding a dangerous smelling belt in his hand. Looking at the guards in disdain, he said, “Outta my way. There’s something wrong with that boy and I’m gonna fix him.”

“You’re not allowed out!” one of the red guards said, turning into a Shiki-Ouji. Others transformed and started herding the cognition back to obscurity.

Hmm… information bubbled up in Ace’s mind, like it often did. This cognition was almost a repressed memory; the repression was weak and the cognition was strong. It probably popped up in response to stressful situations. What would be getting to Madarame now? Maybe their break in.

“I should tell Joker of this,” Ace said softly to herself.

And while the guards were distracted, she went over to the chest to pick the lock and get out some jewels. Might as well.

* * *

Chou had to ask a couple of times for a water break, and eventually to end the session when the sun was starting to set. “Sorry, I need to meet someone in the evening.”

“That’s fine,” he said, stopping to look at his drawings. “I think I’ve got this… I’ll have to check. May I treat you to some tea? Since this is taking long.”

She had an Emperor Persona in Berith; him and what she’d just studied led her to nod. “Thank you, that’d be good.”

As a bonus, she got a look around the kitchen. The cabinet that acted as a pantry looked bare: the tea was in old tins, cooking basics like oil and spices were very basic, no fresh vegetables or fruits were in sight, the rice container was low, a couple of canned foods stood on their own, and a mostly empty bag of rice cakes rounded it all out. Briefly, she caught sight of a chart inside the door of a ‘Food Allowance’ where meals and snacks were marked as allowed or withheld. The kettle and mugs looked old as well; the mug he gave her was chipped on the handle.

“I’m sorry for how things are,” Yusuke said as they were waiting on the water to heat up. “We don’t often have guests here.”

“It’s fine,” Chou said. “Hey, you want to go out to eat? I could spare some time for dinner.”

“Um,” he shifted to a more defensive posture, ashamed. “I don’t have the money on me to spare for that; won’t be able to do grocery shopping until the weekend either.”

“I can cover you for it,” she said, although normally she’d be trying to get a free meal out of others. But this could be good for getting him to open up to her.

“Thank you, but I shouldn’t,” Yusuke said. “Maybe another time.” After a moment, he brushed his bangs aside. “When the goal is to capture pure beauty, one must detach oneself from worldly things. Fame and fortune often bring out the ugliness in people. Sensei and I put most of our money into our art. Everything else, we only get what would not be distracting.”

“That’s some intense devotion to your work,” Chou said, making sure to sound impressed.

He was pleased with that. “It’s what it takes to be an artist. But you get to bring to life things that your mind’s eye sees, which can be even more than what your normal eyes see. Not being attached to the world can be a type of freedom. When my art is going well, I can find joy and contentment no matter what is going on around me.”

“Even when you’re hungry?” she asked.

“Well you can forget hunger, at least until you stop,” Yusuke said, putting a hand to his chin. “Though you can get so absorbed in something that you faint before you realize you’re hungry.”

“That sounds pretty bad.”

He shrugged like it was a normal thing. “It happens.”

Chou kept talking with him over their tea, doing her best to coax out examples of potential abuse without making him defensive. Yusuke insisted that Madarame was the greatest teacher he could get. But when pressed for examples, he struggled to come up with much. Chou changed the subject back to art to stay on good terms with him, acting as if what he said explained things. Fortunately, she spotted Morgana getting back in her bag as she was finishing up her tea; she could leave like nothing was wrong.

After eating a quick dinner from a convenience store on Central Street, Chou went back to Leblanc to change into a more causal outfit, also with pants. “If this place is more for adults, it won’t do to get caught in a school uniform,” she explained to Morgana.

“Ah, that makes sense,” she said, then scratched at her ear. “What’s going to be there if it’s for adults? Adult-themed arcades?”

“If that’s so, I do not want to be in those places,” Chou said. “Probably lots of bars and clubs.”

Morgana had a blank look at that.

“I can’t drink alcoholic drinks because I’m not legally old enough, and the clubs would also capitalize on sex appeal. Maybe even abuse that kind of thing to draw in people like Kamoshida.”

“Ooooh,” she said. “And that reporter wants to meet you there? Sounds like trouble.”

Nodding, she said, “Right, but the media connection could be valuable. She could let us guide what the public hears about us. Are you up to going to Shinjuku? Especially if you don’t want to go in the bar itself.”

“I still got plenty of energy,” Morgana said. “I’ll find valuable info too, just you watch!”

“Looking forward to it,” Chou said. It might be useful info even if she just scouted out what shops were there.

Once ready, they caught a train out to Shinjuku; it required the full train fee since it was outside the range of her student pass. The sun had set while she’d been talking with Yusuke, but this neighborhood was bright and colorful. Dozens of small shops, bars, and restaurants were packed together with lit up signs and noisy barkers trying to draw people into their establishments. None of them were shy about what they were doing, although they might be coy at it.

“You gonna be alright on your own?” Chou asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“This is another chaotic place,” Morgana said, putting her paws on her shoulder. “But I got used to Shibuya, mostly. I can get used to this place. I’ll be careful; you too, I smell a lot of sins here that could cause you problems.”

“Of course,” she said, holding still to let Morgana climb out and jump down. “I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’ll find you.”

Morgana nodded. “If I get bored, I might find that bar and wait outside for you. It was called Crossroads, right?”

“Right. Later then.”

“Later!” She strutted off with her tail held high.

After dodging several barkers, Chou located a small establishment with a recessed entrance and a bright pink sign. Under the word ‘Crossroads’, there was a smaller message said, ‘A respite for those off the beaten path of love’. The list of hours by the door noted that minors were welcome until 10 PM. She still had a few hours to be here. Perhaps this would be a good place to hang around and listen to people?

Curious as to what would happen, she walked in.


	28. Reverse Magician

5/19

Crossroads had a layout similar to Leblanc, being a narrow small place with seats at the bar on one side and booths on the other. There was just the bartender and Ohya in at the moment, often how Chou found Leblanc in the middle of the afternoon. But that was as far as similarities went. Crossroads had neon lights inside as well, along with a wall full of bottles where Leblanc would have a wall full of bean jars. Along with that, the booths had higher walls for privacy.

The bartender was a large woman wearing a kimono and smoking a cigarette. She gave her an appraising look, then said in a distinctly masculine voice, “Hey kid, how old are ya?”

Before she could answer, Ohya looked over. “Oh! Don’t mind her, Lala-chan, I called her here. So you got the info, Chou?”

That was rather familiar for only having met her once. But Chou didn’t mind it; she did mind a little how Ohya was clearly drunk. But it was something that could be tolerated. “Yeah, I got his student to talk a little.”

Smiling broadly, she slapped the stool by her. “Great, then let’s talk! Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The bartender Lala glared at Ohya. “Ahem.”

Not worried, Ohya waved her off. “I’m not going to get the minor a beer, geez. Oolong’s fine?”

“Sure, that’ll work,” Chou said, taking a seat by Ohya. She did smell like alcohol, enough that Morgana would’ve disliked her immediately.

“All right, it’ll take a moment,” Lala said, going to take care of that at the other end of the bar.

Ohya pulled her phone out of her hip pack, to record their conversation. “The evening crowd usually doesn’t show up for another hour, so we’re fine talking here. And don’t worry about Lala, she’s as discreet as she’s stern.” She chuckled at that for some reason, then asked, “So what’s the scoop? You’re posing for a portrait for Madarame’s student?”

She nodded. “Yes, he’s having me read. He wants to capture an androgynous person for a visual mystery.”

Giving her a look over, Ohya said, “Huh, well you would be a good model for that. And that’d be a pretty distinctive portrait. So yeah, you’re a good bait for proof of plagiarism!”

“Kitagawa does have a scholarship that he needs to produce art for on a regular basis,” Chou said. “However, I’m pretty sure that this portrait isn’t for that purpose. He speaks of owing Madarame and having a deadline for getting something done. But he’s reluctant to say anything against his teacher.”

“I’ve seen that,” Ohya said. “So how’s the student strike you?”

“He’s passionate about his art, yet he seems ashamed of the paintings he’s done. He worried a lot about what Madarame would think of this portrait. However, he’s a kind guy too. The pantry was low on supplies, but he still offered me some tea when we were done today.”

Despite being drunk, she was following along. “The pantry was low?”

“And speaking of tea,” Lala said, putting a cup on a small plate in front of Chou. “Give it another minute at least.”

“Sure, thank you,” she said. She’d even offered a sugar packet if wanted. “Yeah, there wasn’t much and they were low on all the basics, like rice. He said he had to wait until the weekend to get more.”

“That is weird,” Ohya said. “You know how much his paintings have sold for? I’ve spoken to buyers and some have paid hundreds of millions of yen. There’s rumors of a price tag of a billion yen, though I haven’t confirmed that one yet. But the pantry’s bare? That’s fishy.”

Chou nodded. “Kitagawa did say that they spend a lot of money on art supplies, but I doubt anything would cost that much.”

“Have you been to Madarame’s exhibit yet? What do you think of his paintings?”

She discussed the paintings, including how she thought the peacock portrait was odd. It was all circumstantial evidence, but Ohya thought it’d be good for raising more suspicions.

* * *

Mission to scout out Shinjuku: difficult, but information had been found. The people, smells, and lights nearly overwhelmed Morgana. She really wanted a break from it all. However, there were some interesting places. There was a bookstore, which Chou would normally appreciate. But it had a large section of books labeled as only for adults. After making sure she wasn’t seen, Morgana pulled one off the bottom shelf and looked at it. It was gross with the naked humans, blood, and chains. Strangely, it smelled of lust. So maybe the bookstore wasn’t as useful unless something was in the other sections.

There was a flower shop here too; Chou might be interested because the nutrients Morgana smelled there were full of vitality. There was a ramen shop among the other restaurants. However, it also smelled like alcohol and she overheard a patron saying that they only enjoyed the place when drunk. Not a good sign. There was a security company that was selling something called insurance along with cameras and systems of some sort. But not locks, which was what they were looking for. There was also a movie theater, but Chou had probably seen that.

Now what? Morgana considered going back to the Crossroads bar and waiting outside as she had said. But it was still right alongside the street. Maybe the train station? But that might be busy too.

Without warning, a voice came out of the crowd. “Oh, hey little kitty. You’re something special, aren’t you?”

She looked over and saw a woman at a table; that and her clothes made her something of an odd sight in this place. She smiled and beckoned her close. Morgana felt offended to be treated like a cat. However, this woman was different. Her aura had an unusual quality, like a clear bell. Perhaps she could be helpful.

“Well I am special,” Morgana said, going over by her table. “But I’m not a cat!”

She then said something shocking, something that baffled Morgana.

* * *

After they got through the info Chou had, Ohya then asked something that Chou wanted to bring up. “Hey, you were from Shujin Academy, right? I seem to think you were wearing the uniform last time.”

Chou nodded. “Right, I transferred there just a month ago.”

“Well do you know anything about those phantom thieves of dreams?” Ohya asked, leaning her chin on her hand. “It’s some growing fad with teenagers, right? And it has something to do with that Kamoshida perv.”

“Yeah, they left a weird card calling him out a day before Kamoshida made his confession,” she said. “A card was left on every bulletin board in school, but nobody saw who left them.”

“I heard of that,” Ohya said. “Were you affected by Kamoshida?”

“No,” she said. “I only started this year. But I know some people who were affected by him.”

“Could you get me contact with one of them? I’ve been trying to interview a student or two who were involved, but the school is very guarded right now.”

Chou shrugged. “I’ll ask, but it’s up to them.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Ohya said. “Those thieves are talked about a lot online, so my editor really wants me to do a story on them. But man, aren’t they cheesy? Calling themselves ‘the phantom thieves of dreams’ and claiming that they were going to steal the coach’s heart.”

“I think they’re cool,” Chou said. “My friends had their lives improve dramatically because Kamoshida admitted to everything.”

“Fair point; still cheesy.” She frowned, thinking.

“Did you find out about the ritual to contact these phantom thieves?” Chou asked.

That made her raise an eyebrow. “A ritual? No. Sounds crazy, but exactly the kind of thing that would generate buzz. So what is it?”

Chou explained about the phone ritual to make requests. That’d be useful information to get widespread. “It’s hard to tell how often it works, but there’s stories online of people who’ve gotten a text from the phantom thieves and ended up having a change of heart too. It’s just not as dramatic as what happened with Kamoshida.”

“Not the most reliable source, but it would be interesting to readers,” Ohya said. “I can work with that.”

“I hope more people see how great the phantom thieves are,” Chou said, leaning into the fangirl act.

Ohya noticed and smiled at it. “Don’t you worry! I’ll be sure to give both stories justice! And thanks for the info. You gonna keep me up to date with the portrait?”

Chou nodded. “Sure, and I’ll see what else I can get out of Yusuke. Maybe Madarame too.”

“Great, this is a good break,” Ohya said excitedly. “All right, here, I’ll give you some payment for this info, and a bit more that should cover your train fee. Let me know when we can meet up again.”

“Will do,” she said, accepting the money. She got the feeling over this evening that Ohya’s arcana would be The Devil. While Ohya was a likely confidant, the connection hadn’t been made yet. Perhaps some more meetings would establish it.

“Anyhow, uh…” a look crossed her face, then she set her glass down. “Excuse me, I’ll be back.” She headed to a bathroom.

Lala watched her go, then turned to Chou. “She’ll be in there a while, so you ought to head home,” she said. “But since you’ll be back, let me tell you something. The police cleaned up this area several years ago, but it drove a lot of criminal elements into hiding rather than eliminate them fully. A girl like you is more likely to be targeted by the shady elements, but you can draw less attention to yourself by dressing like this again.”

“Gotcha,” Chou said. “Don’t worry, I can dress like a boy whenever I like.”

Lala smiled. “It’s a good skill to have, isn’t it? If you have any trouble, you can duck in here. Most people know not to cause trouble in my establishment, or they’ll quickly learn it. But mostly, you should be out of Shinjuku before ten.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep those tips in mind,” she said. “The tea was good too.”

Outside, she got out her phone to track down Morgana. It directed her to another street, to a card table set up in front of a barred doorway. Morgana was sitting on a stool, her ears and head down. Next to her, a woman in a blue dress looked puzzled and upset over Morgana being upset. What was going on? “Morgana, there you are,” Chou called, going over to the table.

“Chou!” She hopped off the stool and then did something unusual: jumped up at her. Chou caught her. “Tell her I’m human, please!” She then buried her head in Chou’s chin.

“Are you her owner?” the woman asked.

There was something unusual about her. She didn’t have the aura of a Persona user, but she clearly had some power to her. From that and Morgana’s behavior, Chou felt comfortable saying, “She’s my partner.”

She accepted it without hesitation. “Ah, of course. Well I’m very sorry for making her upset. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if you can tell, but she’s a holy beast. She must have a special mission to be here in the city. But she wasn’t happy to hear that.”

Taking a seat opposite the woman, Chou said, “Morgana is human, but she doesn’t remember how she ended up as a cat. And she doesn’t like being called a cat.”

“I see,” the woman said. “You’re still very special, Morgana! Is there anything I can do to help you?”

She might be a potential confidant too. On the table, there was a deck of Tarot cards. It gave Chou an idea. But Morgana was still upset and she had to make a connection to this woman. “If you can tell that she’s special, can you figure out something of her past?”

She nodded without hesitation. “I can, actually. I’m a fortune teller and the past is usually easier to divine than the future. Let’s ask the cards and see what comes through.”

“Cards?” Morgana asked, turning around. As the woman shuffled her deck, Morgana settled to sit in Chou’s lap and watch.

She set the cards up in a ten-card spread, in a diamond shaped pattern with two in the center. That was different from what the book discussed, another arrangement. As she focused, her aura brightened with patterns briefly visible. She flipped one card in the center, then turned the outer cards in a clockwise fashion, pausing to study each card in turn. When she got to the second card in the center, she looked back over the circle before flipping it. That one was The Magician, facing Chou.

“Hmm… a golden light in the darkness, the last hope of a prisoner. Yes… Morgana, your parent is both a master and a servant. They’re in trouble; you were sent out to find help. But…” she looked over the cards again, “this is puzzling.”

“Something unusual?” Chou asked.

She nodded. “Yes…” she looked across the table a moment, then smiled. “Well, she is your partner, so I think you’d believe me. I use the Tarot a little differently than most people. I have visions naturally; the cards help clarify what I see, rather than the cards giving people a glimpse into mysteries. But even with the cards, Morgana’s past is fuzzy to me. There is, a place like dreams? She was in a vast labyrinth there amid shadows and distortions. That place is making it difficult to see much more than what I’ve told you.”

“She’s talking about Mementos and the Metaverse,” Morgana said, looking up at Chou. “It sounds right.”

“We know what you’re talking about,” Chou said. “I wouldn’t ordinarily tell just anyone, but I know you’d believe me. There is a world like dreams that the two of us visit, although that’s a generalization. It’s a realm based upon people’s cognitions of the world, in as many layers as there are people.”

“Goodness,” the fortune teller said, putting a hand to her chest.

“You have already told us something new, about her parent,” she added. “And about her mission; she had only a vague notion of what she was doing.”

“Well I hope that helps,” she said. “It’s baffling; I don’t often have hazy visions like that.”

“Maybe it’s because the distortion that changed me was so severe?” Morgana said, her ears shifting. “Like my whole past was erased?”

Even though she didn’t like being treated like a cat, Chou petted Morgana. “It’ll work out,” she said, then told the fortune teller, “Morgana got changed by distortions, some kind of power that exists in cognitions that are warped.”

“That’s terrible, Morgana,” the fortune teller said. “I hope you can find a way to restore yourself. Oh, I know! How about I give you two a free fortune reading today? I don’t feel right leaving you with such an unsatisfactory reading like that.”

“Sure, let’s see what you can do,” Chou said. “Oh, and I’m Chou Amamiya.”

“Ah, sorry!” the fortune teller said, immediately blushing. “Sorry, I didn’t realize we hadn’t even introduced ourselves!” She smiled pleasantly again. “I’m Chihaya Mifune; I’m here telling fortunes most days, unless it’s raining. So yes, let me show you how things normally go.”

Chou nodded and watched as she regathered the cards to shuffle. “All right. Actually, I’ve been studying Tarot cards myself.”

“Really?” Chihaya asked, curious.

“Sure, mostly out of curiosity.” Now to make her request. “Do you give lessons in card reading? The book I have is pretty good, but I think this would be best practiced rather than just read about.”

“Well, I haven’t ever given lessons,” she said, nervous on being asked, but intrigued at the same time. “And as I said, I use cards differently… but I know how standard readings work. Then… all right. Finish your book and you can come back here to observe me. We’ll see what happens.”

“Thanks, I’ll come around later,” Chou said.

Chihaya made a smaller spread of three cards this time. After a moment, she smiled. “Your money fortune is good at this time and should continue for a week. You may luck into some good deals in shops, but your best fortune awaits at home. Go straight home and you’ll find five thousand yen waiting for you. But if you delay, you could miss this chance for good.”

“Sure,” Chou said, opening her bag up for Morgana. “We should be headed home anyhow.”

“I hope you do return,” Chihaya said with a smile and small wave.

While a large group of people got off the train, not many got on it. Chou was able to get a seat and finish off The Gentleman Thief on the ride back home. “That was about Arsene, right?” Morgana said, poking a nose out of the bag.

Chou moved the flap to see her eyes. “Yeah, it was pretty good.”

“He’s a classic member of our trade,” Morgana said, momentarily cheered by that. “I bet he’s inspiring to you.”

She nodded, but that caused a thought. “Yes, I got some good ideas from it. But it also makes me question more about the Arsene we know.”

“I’m wondering about that fortune teller myself,” Morgana said. “She smells like the real deal. Even if you’d not notice that, her prediction was unusually precise. I think… most fortune tellers couldn’t give you an exact figure like that.”

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” Chou said, putting the book away.

In Leblanc, no customers were in. But Sojiro did look pleased. “Evening, Chou. Hey, how are you doing with money?”

“I’m getting by,” she said.

“Well I found a lotto ticket in my pocket that I’d forgotten about,” he said, then set out a five thousand yen note. “Here, consider it a bonus for your test scores.”

This was surprising, though less about Chihaya’s number being right. “You sure?” Chou asked, raising an eyebrow at his generosity.

“Of course, why not?” he said. Perhaps his good mood was influencing him.

“Thanks, it should help,” Chou said, smiling at him as she accepted the money. “Need any help tonight?”

“Nah, it’s been slow the past couple of hours,” Sojiro said. “It’s not bad once in a while; I can catch up on some things. I mean to close up early because of that.”

“Right, but how did you hear about my scores?” she asked. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Well I am keeping an eye on how you’re doing,” he said, rubbing his chin. “That is impressive, pulling off an almost perfect score when you missed the first couple of weeks of the term. Becoming the top scorer ought to give you some respect around school.”

“A little,” Chou said. “And it might’ve been perfect if the social studies teacher wasn’t a forgetful jerk. Everyone got that one question wrong.”

“If that’s the case, it’s not something to hold a grudge over,” Sojiro said.

Chou nodded. “Right. See you tomorrow then.”

“Have a good night,” Sojiro replied, taking his work apron off to head out.

Upstairs, Morgana hopped up on the couch. “Hey, that Chihaya was right! She’s really talented.”

“She got the timing right too since he was in a good mood,” Chou said, sitting by her. “He might not have given me that much otherwise. Are you doing better now?”

“Sort of,” Morgana said. “I mean, I guess being called a holy beast is a compliment? But I was sure that I was human. I’m so drawn by human desires that I must be human. Right? But demons are drawn to human desires too. Maybe I’m a demon?”

“Or a car?” she suggested, trying to make her laugh.

“At this point, it’s a possibility,” she said, not laughing but she looked calmer. “A silly one, but I guess it’s better than being a demon. But what if I turn out to be a demon? That’d mean I was evil, right?”

“You’re not evil,” Chou said, petting her. “I was sure of it, but Chihaya confirmed it by calling you holy.”

“I guess.” Morgana sighed. “Maybe it’s just that I want to be human? Then I could eat curry and pancakes, and take baths instead of cleaning myself. Oo, and I could do so much more if I had hands instead of paws here! If I’m not human, maybe I can become human?”

“It’s a possibility,” she said.

“I’m not sure how that’d happen,” Morgana said. “Maybe the person she called my parent can help. But what’s with them? She said they were both a master and a servant. What kind of person is that?”

“An interesting one for certain,” Chou said. “You came from Mementos, so maybe they’re there?”

“Maybe. Gah, I just don’t know. Let’s discuss something else or I might get depressed.”

Chou rubbed Morgana’s head again. “We don’t want that. We’ll have to keep exploring Mementos. And another thing I’ve been thinking over is how to handle the calling card for Madarame.”

“We should consider that,” Morgana said. “Although we can get into his atelier easy. We could just leave it in an envelope there.”

“But that’s not stylish,” Chou said, waving the idea away. “Simple solutions are good sometimes. But for a calling card, being flashy would be more fun.”

She nodded. “Good point. But that building is off in a residential area, not a crowded place like the main areas of Shibuya. That’s his place of work too, and we don’t know where his other house is.”

“There’s the exhibit,” she said. “We have some things to get done, but I really doubt we’ll be so long at it that the exhibit closes. If we sent the original to Madarame’s atelier, we could then post copies around the exhibit building.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

“No, it isn’t. Don’t you remember? There’s a security camera right at the entrance of the exhibit hall. If we posted the cards there, we’ll get caught on camera. And there’s city cameras around Shibuya too, watching the traffic and busy places like shop entrances. Aura hiding is not going to get us around cameras; you told me that yourself.”

“Right…” Morgana scratched her ear. “Hmm, this is quite a puzzle.”

“I wonder…” Chou opened up her bag and got out a scrap of paper. There should be some tape at her desk. “I want to try something.”

“Can’t hurt,” Morgana said, staying on the couch to watch her.

Chou then transferred them to her layer of the Metaverse to tape the scrap to the wall. She transferred them back… and the paper wasn’t there. When she went back to her layer, the paper was still there. She tried putting a hand on it while transferring. That brought the paper into the real world, albeit not how she wanted this to go. Although, there was a message there now: ‘Come back here.’

“Were you thinking of posting the notes in the Metaverse?” Morgana asked, hopping off the couch. “That’d be handy if it worked.”

“Right, then we wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught,” Chou said, shifting them back to the Metaverse.

As soon as they arrived, Arsene was sitting at her desk. “Having some trouble?” he asked in a smug tone of voice that knew she was.

“Just in making this work,” she said. “I thought that if things in the physical world could change the Metaverse, then something might work in reverse besides changing hearts and directing thoughts. Though I suppose this being a mental landscape, physical objects would be hard to move between realms. That could make our painting plan unravel.”

“Oh right, that would be bad,” Morgana said, hopping up on the bed.

Arsene shrugged. “Then how does your bag work to transfer things from here to there?”

“I don’t know that,” Chou said. “I’m grateful it does.”

“The bag would be too small for most of the paintings, though,” Morgana said, still thinking this over.

Arsene snapped his fingers to draw their attention. “It’s because of your willpower. What is in your bag is yours, correct? What you put in your bag through your pocket transfers because you will it to be yours unconsciously.”

“That fits in with how the Metaverse works,” Morgana said. “But if that works unconsciously, will it work with a calling card or this paper?”

“Not in the same manner, but we could make it work that way.” Arsene then chuckled. “I could tell you how, but that’d be too easy. Entertain me.”

“Are you being a jerk?” Morgana asked, her ears tilting back.

“Am I?” he asked with pretended innocence.

Chou chuckled; that was a joke she used to make frequently, before the arrest upset everything about her life. “Whether he’s a jerk or not, there’s something more important.” She then gave him a challenging look. “I don’t think that you’re Arsene.”

“Is that so?” he asked, curious to hear about it. “What makes you think that?”

“Well the demonic look is a big tip-off,” she said. “And your attitude is less of a gentleman and more of a troll. You’re close but not quite.”

“You know, Arsene is a public domain character at this age,” he said, crossing one leg over the other. “Such characters are prone to reinterpretations for many reasons, from changing social morals to a new writer’s creative fancy. Giving demonic features to a character is fairly common change to make. I could let you in on a little secret: the Sea of Souls isn’t limited to an original creator’s intent.”

“But if you’re some fan’s altered Arsene, you’re still a step from being Arsene,” Chou argued. “And there’s something that trumps even that.”

“And that would be?” he asked.

“Thou art I, I am thou,” she said. Arsene laughed and tipped his hat at that. “But I think you’re still someone behind that.”

“Fair enough,” he said, then seemed to go serious from the shifting flickers of his fiery eyes. “Something you should understand is that right now, my fate is tied to yours. I did that for a reason; I sided with you for a reason. Someday, I might explain those reasons. For now, I ask that you trust me. If you lose, I lose. Is that enough?”

“For now,” Chou said.

“And that’s enough for me for now,” Arsene said. “If you want to place a physical object in the Metaverse to appear in the normal world, it will take a bit more than willpower to do so. So here.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “This is Item Shift. It will allow you to do things like transferring this note to your room, and making your proposed art theft easier. However, it is limited. Its range is connected to the power of your will and ego. Basically, you’ll need to be nearby but won’t need to be right next to the item.”

“Good, we can do some fun tricks with this,” she said, smirking at the thought.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Arsene said. “Well then, you take care of that old man and come back to talk to me. There’s something that I’ll let you know about then.”

“Sure thing.”

Chou tried out Item Shift to move the note to the real world without touching it. That made posting the calling cards much more feasible. However, there was still a fair amount to get done before they could put that stunt in motion.

* * *

‘There were some jealous students who accused me of cheating on the mid-terms. I didn’t; what’s the point of cheating when exams are one of the more interesting challenges of school? While I didn’t think much of it, they reported me to one of the school counselors. That man was lazy and told me to just admit to cheating so they can close up the complaint quickly. Fortunately, the newer counselor called him out on it. I hope this slander ends today.

‘I am going to be meeting with the woman counselor, since she also thought it was nonsense that the school was using me to boost their reputation without offering me any help. She seems reasonable and wants to help me like Sojiro does, so that enough is encouraging.

‘Much of my time after school was spent posing for Yusuke’s painting. Something seems wrong with him; maybe he’s troubled, maybe he just doesn’t get much to eat. But he doesn’t seem to have much social experience, so I don’t want to pry too much and end up with him pushing me away. He’s so serious; I wonder what I could do to earn his friendship.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is another meta reason that this Arsene can't be Arsene: I don't know enough about Arsene Lupin to write about him, heh. I have tried to find some of Leblanc's books, but have had trouble getting a hold of them. But I found this way to make it work anyhow.


	29. The Great Art Theft

5/20

Chou caught an early train to Shibuya in order to glance around some shops in the underground mall. She’d need to go by the copy shop in Ayotome too, to get the calling card printed. In the underground mall, she went right to a hardware store. Making sure the worker was preoccupied with another customer, Chou brought out the padlock she’d taken from Madarame’s room to compare to the locks on sale. There were some hefty looking ones there… and on the bottom row, there was a sale tag on the same brand as the stolen lock. She bought that and a box of temporary wall hooks.

Since she’d found that quickly, she took a look into a toy store in the underground mall as well. There was something else that could make their plans better… when she spotted it on the shelf, she chuckled and took it right away.

“What’re you cackling about?” Morgana asked, peeking out of her bag.

“I found some fun stuff,” Chou said, showing it to her. “Trust me, this is going to make an impression.”

“They call that a toy?” she asked, coming out to look closer. “Hmm, I’m curious. You going to get it?”

“Since it’s here, yes.” She bought it as well, then stuck the things in her bag. The old padlock got dumped in a trash bin on her way to the platform. “If we can pull this off on Sunday, it’ll be great.”

“Sounds good to me,” Morgana said.

At lunch, Ryuji was clearly worried. “What’s eating you?” Chou asked as she sat down at the courtyard table with them.

After letting out a sigh, he said, “Just track team stuff. I figured I’d have a hard time fitting back in; the freshmen guys are cool now that we’ve had a few days to work together. But the juniors and seniors are tense with each other, bickering at the least little things. I tried mediating between a couple guys yesterday, but they just told me off.”

“You can’t let them get to you,” Ann said. “But what’re they arguing about?”

“Nonsense about Kamoshida still,” he said. “Like if somebody was secretly helping him by revealing secrets about everybody on the team. He did know how to push everyone’s buttons to put us on edge.”

Shiho nodded. “Right, that’s how he operated with us too. But usually it was blackmailing us against each other instead of having a willing helper.”

“It could be the case here,” Ryuji said. “I really need to get to the bottom of this. Anyhow, something up with you lately Chou? You seem preoccupied a lot.”

“I agreed to do some work that’s taking up a lot of my time,” she said. “Like I’ll be busy all weekend. Hopefully it’s just that.” It wouldn’t be because she’d move to another target, but she hoped to take down Madarame in that time.

One thing that could delay things was how she had an appointment for a clinical trial with Dr. Takemi today. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Chou to realize that today’s experiment was a placebo. “This is a standard and necessary part of clinical trials,” the doctor explained after doing some work on her computer. “No avoiding it.”

“I understand,” Chou said. “You need to make sure I’m not psyching myself into side effects or whatever.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Takemi said, then got interrupted by the phone. “Again?” she muttered, as it was the second call during this session. She still took it. “This is the Takemi Clinic of Internal Medicine, may I help you?”

Whoever was on the other line said something that surprised her.

“We’re not qualified to take in emergencies,” Takemi said. “I understand, but we can’t. Besides, the lead practitioner here is Tae Takemi…” whoever it was hung up. “Well, that’s that.”

“A wrong number?” Chou asked.

“Basically,” she said, setting the phone back in its base. “That was an ambulance medic; the hospital they normally head to has a full ER currently. But calling a general practitioner? Still, he knew my name.”

After making sure with Mokoi, Chou asked, “You notorious?”

Tae chuckled. “Quite. I suppose you have a right to know. About a year ago, I was leading a team in developing a new medicine in tandem with a pharmaceutical company and a medical university here in Tokyo. It was going fine, but then with no warning, a new person took over leadership of the team. He rushed the testing phase and something went wrong; a patient ended up in intensive care because of how serious of a reaction she had. I ended up taking the blame and was blacklisted by the medical community. They call me The Plague now.” Although it was a dismal story, Tae seemed curious about how she would react. “Does that scare you, that you’re in a medical trial with me?”

“Nah, you don’t strike me as a bad person,” she said. “Besides, I’m currently on probation for provoking the wrong person. I’m in no position to look down on someone else for a mistake.”

She smiled at that. “I see, us misfits have to stick together.” The phone rang again, making Takemi shake her head. “I have a feeling he’s harassing me with all these calls now.” Still she took the call. “This is the Takemi Clinic of Internal Medicine, may I help you? Pizza? Sorry, wrong number.” She sighed as she put the phone back. “Especially these takeout calls.”

“That’s childish,” Chou said. “Something I’d do as a small prank.”

“It’s funny if it’s a friend,” Tae agreed. “But that’s not going to make me give up. Anyhow, since this was a placebo trial and you weren’t fooled by it, you can go ahead and leave. I’ll be here tomorrow, so let me know if there is some delayed effect. That’d be bizarre, but still.”

Chou picked up a few medicines from her, then headed to Shibuya. She and Morgana used the Metaverse to get up to the third floor of the atelier. After a moment to make sure they were alone up there, Morgana went down to scout out the rest of the house. Chou put on the disposable gloves, then used her pocketknife to open up the padlock’s package.

A few minutes later, Morgana came back upstairs. “Yusuke’s doing some chores on the first floor, but Madarame’s nowhere around. There’s a new padlock on his studio room, but I don’t smell anyone in there.”

“Well this room is locked now,” Chou said, tugging on the lock. “He might hear us moving around, but he shouldn’t spot us here.”

“We’ll be as stealthy as possible,” Morgana said quietly, looking eager to begin.

The next move was going back to Chou’s layer of the Metaverse. As she’d placed the lock, they found the studio door locked. But she had the key to unlock it. Since Item Shift was based on willpower, she could remove the lock here and even leave the door open on her layer without moving it in reality. They moved to Madarame’s Palace from inside the studio. As Ace had discovered, it dropped them into the large gallery with the laser maze. Security was at a moderately low level, so there were no guards keeping them from moving between here and the Secret Gallery with the paintings.

It was a long tedious process, but it would be worth it.

* * *

On leaving the exhibit hall, Madarame felt glad to give up the pretense of niceness for the day. He had a headache, a problem that had plagued him for a while now. Fooling people was like a game, one that Madarame played constantly. Everyone was two-faced; he was lucky to have learned that early, and to learn how to best capitalize on it. But games weren’t fun when pain was an obstacle.

There was also this strange sense of paranoia. It felt like someone was trailing him. Since he was in the exhibit hall, it should have been clear that he had no stalker. Only the museum staff was with him all day as the visitors came and left. But it still seemed like someone was lurking around, waiting for a chance at something. It couldn’t be anything good.

Madarame had already decided to go to his main home tonight; that would be relaxing and reassuring. But he checked back with Yusuke at the atelier first. After all, the strange break-in might be a reason he felt paranoid today. He suspected whoever it was had been some fool who hadn’t made a complete plan on how to move the art. If a real theft happened here, there would be grave problems in dealing with it.

Unfortunately, Yusuke was worried. “I’m sorry, Sensei,” he said, giving a bow. “I’m not sure what happened, but it’s even stranger than the other day.”

“What now?” he asked, rubbing his forehead. “Is my studio safe?”

“It’s still locked,” Yusuke said. “Again, nothing seems missing. But that third floor studio where the window was open last time? That room is also locked now.”

“Locked?”

Yusuke nodded and led him up to the third floor. As he said, the door now had the same lock as the second floor studio. “I thought I saw the studio open on my initial look through the atelier,” he said. “But when I came up here to do some cleaning, it was shut.”

“Did you hear anyone in there?” Madarame asked, taking out his keyring. This might be the stolen lock.

“I’m not sure,” Yusuke said, embarrassed. “There was no response when I called out and any noise I heard was indistinct.”

He put his key in the lock and could not move it. This was a different lock. However, his security guards had recommended this lock because it wasn’t easy to break. “This is a headache,” he said. “I can’t stick around tonight and it seems like we can’t do anything about this. I’ll call some people tomorrow.”

“All right,” he said, although he seemed nervous. “Pardon me, but could you look over the sketches I have? I think I’ve got what I want for the portrait, but I’m not sure.”

“Your own judgment should be best for your ideas,” Madarame said, not wanting to deal with that right now. The pressure would be good for him. It would help him focus. And if Yusuke couldn’t take the pressure, it was time to be rid of him anyhow.

What was the reason behind these strange actions? No matter how he racked his brain, Madarame couldn’t figure out why someone would be doing this. There was no benefit to it. Unless, was it one of his former students?

* * *

5/21

As classes got out, Chou texted Yusuke to see if he wanted her over at the atelier today. She had to deal with his Palace bud before Madarame. He didn’t reply quickly, so she headed up to the library to exchange books. Keeping her aura low helped with people not noticing her. Out of those that were open to check out, she found a manga called ‘D&D: Lair of the Beholder’. It looked like an interesting horror story, so she checked it out.

He hadn’t replied yet, so she went to the courtyard to check the vending machines for any drinks or snacks available. The bottled water was good for restoring energy. After she got a couple, she heard arguing from the grassy area. It seemed to be a group of track team members. While it didn’t have anything to do with her, she noticed Ryuji hurrying over from another area. He might appreciate some back-up, but how?

Switching to a Chariot Persona let her know that he’d appreciate back-up but would like to handle most of it himself. Chou walked over quietly so they didn’t notice her right away. “What are you guys doing ganging up on Nakaoka?” Ryuji asked.

“You have no right to be interfering,” one of the other runners said. “But Nakaoka is a traitor too.”

“I told you, that’s not true,” Nakaoka said.

“Don’t lie,” the other boy said, echoed by scowls on the other boys. “You told Kamoshida all that shit that he bullied us with, like what my mother was having me do, and that crap about your parents, Sakamoto.”

Ryuji briefly glanced over as he noticed her. He then ignored her in favor of trying to mediate. But knowing that she was there affected him. “Hey, that shouldn’t matter anymore. Kamoshida’s gone and we’re back in business. So what if he told Kamoshida things? He was probably blackmailed into it like a lot of other students. Besides, it feels real bad looking back on shitty things you’ve done. As long as he’s not causing trouble now, give him a second chance.”

“You’re just looking for a second chance for yourself. We can’t have any traitors if we want to excel.”

“Blaming each other isn’t going to help,” Ryuji said. “It could have been any of us who was used to destroy the team. We have to rebuild now and prove that we’re stronger than any attempt to tear us down. Hell, the volleyball team has already proven that for themselves no matter how their bid for Nationals turns out, and they went through more shit for longer than we did. Are you gonna prove yourselves just as strong? Or are you gonna prove yourself a whiner who can’t let go of the past and learn from it?”

“He’s got a point,” Nakaoka said, rubbing his head. “I’ve been bad about blaming others too. This really is ridiculous. Was it Yamauchi who said all that about me?”

“Well,” the one boy who’d been talking looked taken aback at this.

“Yeah, it was,” one of the other boys said.

“And why would you take his word over Nakaoka’s?” Ryuji asked. “Yamauchi was a supporter of Kamoshida, remember? And you should remember how little he actually cares about track. Nakaoka is just as passionate about running as any of us.”

“Yeah, we should convince the school to get our old coach back,” Nakaoka said, taking some courage from Ryuji’s support. “Hell, even the freshman math teacher would be better than Yamauchi because he used to run track himself and is no two-faced kiss-up.”

“But Yamauchi was the one who agreed to get the team active again.”

The boys who’d been accusing Nakaoka seemed uncertain now. This might continue to divide them. While she wasn’t a part of their team, Chou had a feeling that she might be able to nudge that divide to close. She already had her aura low to seem unimportant. Speaking up enough to get their attention, she said, “Yamauchi is suspicious. He’s not even here to watch you practice, huh?”

Only Ryuji recognized her this time. He nodded. “Yeah, where the hell is he?”

“Uh, he already left.”

“Then what kind of coach is he?” Ryuji asked. “Trying to divide us and not even showing up for practice; he’s fucking awful even if he’s not the shithead that Kamoshida was.”

Some other students in gym clothes came over, a few girls among the boys. “Hey, sempai? Are we going to start running soon?”

“Yeah, we should get to practice,” Ryuji said. “Come on, Nakaoka, Takeishi. It’s high time we dropped the chatter and started warm-ups.”

“R-right,” Takeishi said, embarrassed now.

Before joining his teammates, Ryuji waved at her. “Hey Chou! Thanks, that was close.”

“No problem,” she said. “Good luck with practice.”

“Yeah, I feel I’m gonna have to sort this mess out more than actually run today,” he said. “But somebody’s got to do this before these lies and grudges ruin everyone’s fun. We’ll have to hang out sometime later.”

“Sure thing,” she said.

Yusuke had responded while she’d been listening in on the track team. ‘Sure, come on by. Actually, I’m glad you can come today. I won’t be available tomorrow.’

Chou: Going to be at the exhibit?

Yusuke: Yes, there’s going to be a class visit.

Yusuke: Actually, you might be interested since it’s going to be a special lecture by the teacher. Possibly Sensei too if he feels well.

Chou: Would your teacher be okay with someone from another school showing up for the lecture?

Yusuke: It will be fine. The teacher is allowing us to bring guests along because it’s on Sunday.

Chou: It could be interesting, though I got lucky to get my first ticket.

Yusuke: We can negotiate a student discount for you if you’re there for the lecture. Just send me a message when you arrive so I can help.

Chou: Thanks, I’ll come by today and tomorrow then.

During their session, Yusuke worked on the canvas itself, getting a sketch to work from. As it got dark, he stopped a moment and put a hand to his head. Chou kept still, but asked, “You all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, although he didn’t sound it. “I just haven’t got much to eat today. I’ve got a good base, so I don’t need you here every time I work now.”

“Sure,” she said, closing her book to put it away. “Hey, want me to treat you at the diner today? It’ll be easier than making dinner.”

“Well…” he checked something on his phone, seeming conflicted. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. But you won’t mention this to Sensei?”

“I can keep it quiet,” Chou said.

Relieved to hear that, he said, “Thanks. The kitchen’s restocked, but I have to make everything last for the month.”

At the diner, Yusuke ordered the Nostalgic Steak, along with some coffee and stir-fried veggies. She went with the steak too, in order to sneak some to Morgana on the bench beside her. Yusuke was too preoccupied to notice the cat with them. Despite that, Chou got him to talk. Mostly complain, but that meant he was getting comfortable with her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to complain so much,” Yusuke said. “I love it when I’m working on my art. In my head, I can see what I want to do clearly; it’s exciting to follow my vision and put it into reality. But once I’m done with it, I find it often does not meet my expectations. It’s disheartening, yet I keep trying.”

“You keep trying because you love it,” Chou said. “And someday you’ll master art.”

Yusuke nodded. “That’s what I want. It simply feels difficult to make progress now.”

“Have you asked Madarame about that?” she asked, having a hunch that either he hadn’t or Madarame hadn’t said anything useful.

“He’s been feeling ill lately,” he said. “And he says he trusts my judgment. He’s one of my strictest judges, though. I want to make something worthy of his praise.”

“I hope you can do that,” Chou said, giving him a smile. “Although, if he’s sick, why’s he not at home?”

“I don’t really know,” he answered after a moment.

Once they left the diner, Chou gave him a couple minutes to get ahead. Then she followed him back home in order to get to his layer of the Metaverse there. The streets around them didn’t look any different. For that matter, neither did the atelier nor herself. “If you hadn’t changed, I’d think we weren’t in the Metaverse.”

“This layer has some distortion, but it isn’t overwhelming yet,” Ace said. “Also, he isn’t paranoid like Madarame. He sees you as a friend, so you’re sort of allowed here and don’t need a will of rebellion to be safe.”

“That’s good to know,” Chou said. “But I don’t want to be recognized by him. So…” she thought of herself as Joker, in those clothes.

“You should be able to change,” Ace said.

She needed to ignite a will of rebellion in Yusuke… that caused a flicker of light over her, changing her to Joker. “Alright, should we invite him in here?”

“Invite a person into their own Palace?!” she asked, shocked at the suggestion. “That could cause their Shadow Self to go crazy, like with Itachi.”

“That’s if he doesn’t accept his Shadow,” Joker said, using her phone to bring up the guest tutorial to show her. “If he does accept it, that is a way to awaken his Persona and destroy this Palace bud at the same time.”

She looked over the information. “Hmm… I see, it makes sense… it’s still dangerous for us and Yusuke.”

“We could call in the other students to help,” she said. “If it does come to a fight, we’ll have a better idea of how to guide them against Madarame.”

“Good idea,” Ace said. “We should still be careful.”

Yuina, Rio, and Natsuhiko showed up quickly. When Yusuke showed up, they were transported into the atelier. The room didn’t look right, with windows shifting positions and furniture out of proportion. To get their attention, Joker said, “We’ve gathered to break Madarame’s deceptions, but first, we need to help Yusuke. Do you know what’s holding you back?”

“This dream has changed,” Yusuke said, looking around at them all. He then fiddled with the peacock tag on his collar, something that he’d never worn in reality. “I can’t leave here; I can’t betray Sensei.”

“But he’s betrayed us,” Natsuhiko said. Neither he nor the other two had those tags now. “He said he’d support us when he meant to steal our art all along.”

“It is really tough being out there alone with how much Madarame takes,” Rio said. “It was a large price to pay for being true to my art. But I think we can make it worthwhile.”

Yusuke looked away from them, ashamed. The room changed over to the studio they’d been using, but longer with extra bookcases. “Well I, I really can’t. I haven’t made something worth his praise that I can repay my debt with.”

“He doesn’t praise any of us,” Natsuhiko said. “It’s to make us feel like we’re obligated to keep working for him. Especially you; the works that I know are yours are some of those that get highest praise from critics.”

Rio nodded. “Yes, the thing that pushed me into leaving was overhearing him boast about prices he got out of both of our works, then complaining about how he had to be vague in criticisms because the paintings were too good.”

While the others were talking, Yuina went over to Yusuke’s side. “They’re right, and Madarame doesn’t deserve to be called Sensei, or a guardian. Raising children does require some sacrifice, but we don’t ask our children to sacrifice so much for us. Nor would we ruin their lives and reputations for being useless to us. He acts like a slave master, not a true master. In fact, he doesn’t deserve your art.”

“I don’t know…” Yusuke said.

The room around them changed to the third floor studio. Yusuke’s Shadow appeared with them, near one of the easels with a painting of a rabbit and flowers. In contrast to them, three specters in the room were barely visible, how they were when they’d died. “No, we know what’s going on,” the Shadow said; it was a mirror image of Yusuke, just with golden eyes. That wasn’t even how Shadows appeared in Mementos. “We’ve seen him do these scams over and over again. Why would he do any different with you?”

“But I haven’t done something good enough yet,” Yusuke said.

“That one should’ve been good enough,” Rio said, gesturing to the rabbit painting. “I saw it when I first came here and was surprised that it had been painted by a kid. But you could do better once you’re free of him.”

Shadow Yusuke clenched a fist. “I remember how angry you were over how he dismissed this painting in front of your face, and then dismissed your feelings by making you stay quiet for a week before insisting on an apology. And weeks after that, he spoke with barely contained pride about the painting to get it sold. We should break off all loyalty to him!”

“I really want to,” Yusuke said, glancing around nervously. “But have I proven myself worthy?”

“How long are you going to ask these questions?” the Shadow asked sternly. “He tells us to look at this dispassionately. Doing so to him shows that he will not change on his own.”

Joker nodded. “We mean to change him, by stealing the distorted desires of his heart. That will free you from Madarame’s control. But we’d like you to help with changing him.”

“If we can change him to how he should be, I could be how I should be…” Yusuke said, thinking it over.

“And we’ll be there for you,” Natsuhiko said. “We’ll have to meet up somehow.”

“My class is going to have a lecture at the exhibit tomorrow,” Yusuke said, then looked over his peers. “We should stop Sen… Madarame. He’s looking for new students, so he’s not going to stop any time soon.”

“Then you agree with me that we should leave, no matter how difficult it may be?” Yusuke’s Shadow asked. “It’s to be loyal to our art, not his.”

With the other three students there, Yusuke was able to find some courage. “Loyal to our art… yes, this fear can’t hold us back.” He tugged at the peacock tag and pulled it off completely.

As he did, the air rippled. The students didn’t seem to notice, but Ace’s tail fluffed up as she looked around cautiously. Joker took out her phone; there was a warning text there. ‘A being from a stronger distortion is attempting to break through.’ As she glanced around, faint cracks were there in the air. This probably couldn’t be stopped.

‘Not from our end,’ Arsene said in her head. ‘Be ready.’

Meanwhile, Shadow Yusuke offered a hand to Yusuke. “Keep that in mind and we can escape. Will you?”

“Yes,” Yusuke said, taking his Sahdow Self’s hand. The golden-eyed spirit smiled before he vanished.

A second later, the air shattered and took them out of the warped view of the Palace bud. They were dropped into the golden courtyard of Madarame’s Palace instead. Partitions of flames rose up out of the floor around them. Briefly, a demon with a dragon’s head and wings of fire was there with them. It vanished as the double peacock doors opened up, allowing Madarame’s Shadow into the room. “What are you doing wandering around?!” he shouted, causing the students to flinch to varying degrees. Shadow Madarame flung his arm out dramatically, throwing them into the partitions and turning them into paintings. “You’re mine; I won’t let you escape again.”

He wasn’t able to affect her or Ace. Joker swapped her phone for her gun. “No, they don’t belong to you,” she said. “We’ll steal them to give them back to themselves.”

“You can’t do that!” Shadow Madarame said, crossing his arms over his chest and acting like he was a master in his golden clothes. “They are my wealth; they are my glory! I took them in and provided for them, so they owe me everything.”

Three of the four paintings broke as the older students were able to escape. “That’s a lie!” Yuina said sharply. “You barely provided for us; you ruined us rather than raised us.”

“Right, there were no instructions, just lies,” Natsuhiko said.

Shadow Madarame laughed, although there was still anger in his eyes. “You want the truth? Fine. The truth is that people are tasteless fools, only seeking that which will make them look better. They go along with the crowd rather than think for themselves. And don’t get smug, that includes all of you! You sought attention when you didn’t deserve it and never tried to stand on your own merit. On top of that, you have no business sense and were just lost in your own little worlds. You would’ve been ignored if you worked on your own; only my brand could give your art any worth in the eyes of the foolish public!”

While he spoke, Yusuke freed himself from his painting as well. “What is with this gaudy place?” he asked in disbelief. “Whoever designed this had atrocious taste.”

“What?!” Shadow Madarame asked, insulted.

Rio nodded. “This place just screams thoughtless wealth with no shame.”

“Nonsense, this was built to magnify my glory!” Shadow Madarame said, raising his hands dramatically.

“This is a view within Madarame’s heart, distorted by his sins,” Ace explained. “It’s what he imagines his atelier shack as.”

Yusuke frowned at that. “Really? No wonder he doesn’t teach art; he can’t if this is what he imagines as glory.”

“That’s enough!” Shadow Madarame said. Fire erupted behind him as Moloch reappeared to fuse into him. “If you’re going to turn on me now, then you’re of no worth! You should perish so that my glory becomes the truth!” His body then warped, his skin turning gold and his eyes glittering like diamonds.

As he turned into a statue, a scorched kiln dropped from the ceiling and cracked many tiles in the walkway through the sand garden. It belched out flames as the lid opened on its own. This wasn’t good; they hadn’t even put together the calling card yet. However, there didn’t seem to be any escaping this battle. Joker swapped Personas to cast a Rakukaga to start protecting the others. Then she observed to see what the students could do.

Yusuke had a katana in hand now, but he cast powerful ice magic at the kiln; its flames briefly died off. Next to him, Natsuhiko had two daggers. He vanished with a puff of smoke to reappear behind Madarame for several slashes in a row. Rio only had a paintbrush in hand. However, she closed her eyes and summoned a thunderstorm by painting symbols in the air. Yuina cast a spell to empower them all, then took the naganita she had in two hands and looked for a chance to strike. It seemed Rio would be unpredictable, but the other three might be good fighters.

They were lacking knowledge, though. She invited Yuuki since he was the only guest she knew of who could figure out good info. Meanwhile, the statue of Shadow Madarame laughed. “You children are hopeless! Being true to your art? Don’t make me laugh; you won’t be able to show anything you’ve made as your own because you all belong to me.”

“This is to make things right, for the sake of all who’ve died for your ambitions,” Yuina said.

“If they’ve died, they were worthless,” Shadow Madarame insisted. “And you! You were always worrying over a million worthless thoughts, getting worked up over things you could do nothing about. You had no chance in the competitive heat of the art world! I bet you haven’t changed at all.”

“I worry because I care, that’s all,” Yuina said. “Meeting others proved to me how heartless you really are.”

“Caring does nothing that the facade of caring can’t accomplish,” Shadow Madarame said, bringing out his own paintbrush to cast a wind spell at Rio and blow her storm away. Cracks appeared in his golden facade, but it didn’t stop him. “And you have no social skills whatsoever, always lost in your head with childish ideals. There’s no way you can function in reality; you were always doomed to ruin yourself.”

Tensing up, Rio glanced aside. Joker nodded. “I’d prefer someone with so-called childish ideals over someone who lies to disguise how nasty he is.”

“R-right,” Rio said, taking some courage from her. “And you made things worse for me, I’ve realized that. You make the world worse for everyone!”

Shadow Madarame was now a statue (with growing cracks), but there was a sense like a careless shrug to that. “What do I care for how things are for others? That’s just a waste.”

Ace then hopped over to Joker’s side. “Hey, I’ve got an idea but I need to go to the floor below here for it. But it should scare the hell out of him if it works like I think.”

“Go for it,” she said, to which Ace nodded and darted away into the shadows. Meanwhile, Yuuki had arrived. “Keep on your toes,” she said to him as he came alert. “That golden Shadow is Madarame, a sinner like Kamoshida; I need to know anything you can find out to bring him down with just the dreamers here.”

Yuuki looked over at Madarame and his kiln, then nodded. “Got it, Joker. I’ll see what I can find.” He took his laptop over to one of the further partitions in order to be out of the way.

In the meantime, Madarame had gotten his kiln fired up again. It opened up its lid to blast them all with flaming pottery shards. Then demonic arms emerged and tried to snatch up Natsuhiko. “I won’t stand for ugly wastes, especially disloyalty to me! And you’re a sniveling snoop, insecure and clingy when you don’t have reassurance. If you don’t get what you want, you’d betray anyone in petty vengeance. You are definitely a waste of space!”

“I had every reason to feel insecure when you lured me into your scheme,” Natsuhiko said, angered at the accusation. He slashed the kiln arms away before warping away. “And you only took advantage of that. A black-hearted person like you is a worse waste of space.”

The cracks on Madarame were now enough to make chips of gold fall off. Growling in anger, he made hail pelt them along with the burning shards. The combination ended up weakening both attacks, though. “No! I am the one who has the mix of innate talent, realistic knowledge, and earned experience to be a master! I deserve my fame and my fortunes. And with my connections and power, I make the rules of the art world! I am the only one who can say who is a true artist or not!”

After trying to cut him in a heavily cracked area, Yusuke said sternly, “You say that, but you rarely talk about art itself. When you do, it’s in abstract terms that convey nothing practical. You’re not looking like much of an artist right now.”

“You have no right to be saying that!” Shadow Madarame said despite the increasing amount of cracks he bore. “You’re the worst of them all! Asocial fool, insecure worrywart, lost in ideals, and you owe me everything because I’ve supported you monetarily for your whole life! All because your mother was the same way, talented beyond what she could handle.”

“You have not helped me either,” Yusuke said, attacking him still.

“Hey,” Yuuki called quietly. “That Madarame, right? The golden statue is strong against magic except for ice, while the kiln is also weak to ice while strong against physical attacks. And Beholder tells me that if that kiln pulls anyone in, they’re likely to get killed, which will make Madarame more powerful.”

“All right,” Joker said, swapping over to Apsaras for her ice magic. It’d be risky with the flames being thrown around, but she had seen that the fires could be lessened. “Rio, Yusuke, use any ice attacks you have against the kiln. Natsuhiko, Yuina, keep attacking the statue with your weapons.”

Within a few ice spells and a summoned blizzard, the kiln had lost enough flames to lose even its smoke. Madarame’s statue tried casting fire over it to ignite it again. “I have done nothing wrong! Everything I do is perfectly legal; there is no crime here!”

“Your abuse and neglect are serious crimes,” Yuina said.

“Crimes that has led to many of your students dying,” Joker added since these survivors might not realize it.

“I don’t care what happens to those who fail me,” Madarame said. “Or those who are unfairly in my way, like his mother Miyumi! Her death was a lucky stroke for me, one that finally gave me the stardom I deserve.”

“What?” Yusuke said, barely keeping his anger from taking over. But that was fine right now. Joker destroyed the kiln with a Bufula, getting that threat out of the picture.

“All I had to do was let her die and I could pull off my greatest scheme,” Madarame said, smug despite how his statue was falling apart. “I did end up burdened with you, but then your inherited talents continued my fortunes. Now that you’ve turned on me, you’re worth more dead than alive to me, just like her.”

“What did you do to her?” Yusuke asked, striking the statue hard enough to shatter it.

The fragments of the kiln and statue melted into black goo; Shadow Madarame with normal skin and his golden clothes emerged from that goo. Backing up and holding his hands up, he said, “Good grief, if you’re going to ask questions, let me talk! You’d be missing out on true brilliance if you don’t hear this story.”

“We’re tired of hearing you constantly talking about yourself,” Rio said. “Especially when your brilliance is another rotten scheme.”

With a grimace, Madarame waved a paintbrush and summoned up a group of paintings that made a distorted portrait of himself. “Failing to see my brilliance only proves that you’re one of the foolish crowd, unable to appreciate what matters. All of you should perish!” Paintbrushes filled the air, covering them all in the black goo.

“He’s made us vulnerable to anything and everything!” Yuuki called in warning. He then tried to shake the goo off himself, being unable to do so.

“Be careful,” Joker said as the mouth painting laughed at them.

Then a bellowing voice cut over everything. “You! You’ve only grown more rotten over the years! Why did you fail to follow the wisdom of your father?!”

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Madarame cried, his paintings quivering. “You’re dead! Get out of my head!”

“I will get you in line if you won’t do that for yourself,” the cognition of his father threatened, wielding a belt like a whip.

In the meantime, Joker noticed two things. Ace had returned, chuckling at her work in bringing the dangerous cognition here. And on one of the partitions, a portrait of one of Madarame’s other students appeared. It broke, allowing a familiar ghost to emerge.

“The dead want a reckoning,” the ghost said, revealing himself to be Itachi. “You will be judged as a source of ruin, not as one of brilliance.”

“You’re ignorant yokels, all of you!” Madarame shouted, right before the cognition attacked his mouth painting.

“Those paintings are different from each other,” Yuuki said to her. “The mouth absorbs physical hits, while the eyes will absorb magic. The nose is neutral. But he’s dropped that black paint by that partition. It’ll make him weak to everything too.”

Paint… the artists might do well with that, but Madarame was more likely to notice if one of them dropped out of the fight. He was noticing her too, when she spoke up. On dodging a wind spell, Joker crouched by Ace. “Hey,” she whispered, pointing to the paint. “Would you hit him with that? I don’t think neatness matters, just cover him with it.”

Ace nodded. “Gotcha, I’m on it.” She dashed away behind a nearby partition to sneak over.

Joker swapped over to her Persona that had Media in order to heal up the others who’d been hit by the wind. “Maybe you should’ve listened to your father,” she said, guessing that it’d incite him.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Madarame’s Shadow said, using his wind magic to knock her to her feet.

In the meantime, Rio had summoned the thunderstorm back; the rain started to wash their paint away. “He couldn’t have been a worse father figure than you,” she said.

“No, he never appreciated me for who I was!” Madarame insisted. However, he was shifting his paintings away from where the cognition was approaching. “I never harmed you, while he would beat me for the least mistake.”

“You harmed us deeply, into our minds and hearts,” Yuina said. “There’s no difference.”

“You exaggerate again, only proving yourself unworthy in that!” He tried to change the storm again, but could only stop the lightning.

Seeing Ace picking up a brush, Joker went over by Rio. “Shift back to the blizzard so the paint doesn’t wash off him,” she said quietly.

Rio nodded and made air strokes with her brush as Ace came out with the paint can and brush. “Let’s see how you look in black!” she called, leaping onto the frame of the mouth to messily splash the goo all over the nose and eye paintings. Then she dumped the rest of the can over the mouth.

“Hit him with everything you’ve got, just don’t kill him,” Joker called. She could feel her power building up. Perhaps in doing that, delaying the calling card wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But it would have to be done tomorrow.

“You’re making a mistake!” Madarame’s Shadow tried to claim. However, he was focused on destroying the cognition of his father. Between that chance and Rio’s blizzard, the four paintings were quickly demolished.

“What are you going to do with him if not kill him?” Yusuke asked.

Joker went up to where Madarame was fallen on the ground, surrounded by the black goo; there was fear in his eyes despite how he should have heard her orders. “It seems that he has never felt empathy. But now he will; he will feel the suffering that has come from his sins, including from those who have died.” She then connected her power to him so he felt the weight of his sins.

He claimed that physical abuse was worse. But she could see what he caused instead: hunger that was rarely satisfied, shame at soft-spoke insults, despair from helplessness, anxieties and fears stoked like a fire until a person’s spirit was broken. He shouldn’t be allowed to excuse this; he felt the darkness and pain of all of his students even as many of them died. As his Treasure was still there, it tried to secure him. But it couldn’t protect him from becoming overwhelmed by suddenly feeling everything from everyone he had ever harmed.

While he was screaming, Joker pulled out her phone. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, transferring herself, Ace, and all of their guests back to Yusuke’s Palace bud. There was another shattering around them. But this time, it left them in the entrance of the atelier without any distortion. The dreamers were starting to fade away, perhaps in having their goals met. “I wish you all well,” Joker said before they were gone.

“I should leave,” Yusuke said, heading out the door. The others followed him out, speaking a few last words of encouragement to him.

“And thanks for your help,” she said to Yuuki as she sent him away. “It made that battle much smoother.”

“Hey, could I work with you permanently?” Yuuki asked. Unfortunately, he was already fading out of the Metaverse as well. “You’ve saved me; I want to do all I can to help you.”

“Sorry, but no,” Joker said. “As long as you’re a dreamer in this world, you can’t be blamed for what happens.”

While he looked disappointed, Ace nodded once Yuuki was gone. “Someone with his kind of power would be amazing to have as an active partner. But you’re right, he’d be risking just as much as us if he does.”

“And the Game Master would raise hell if there was a third phantom thief with us,” she said. Then she looked to Itachi’s ghost. “Sorry we couldn’t save you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Itachi said. “I let myself be imprisoned, but one of Kaneshiro’s goons eliminated me before I could give a good testimony. But I helped to take down Madarame at least. You’ll go after Kaneshiro too?”

She nodded. “He’s on the list.”

“Good, I’ll trust you in that,” he said, fading away as well.

“But Madarame’s Palace is still there, with his Treasure,” Ace said once Itachi was gone. “What’re we going to do about that?”

“I have a feeling that we should be good as long as we get the card sent within a day,” Joker said. “When we do, his Shadow should be weaker for tomorrow.”

“I hope it’s that way,” Ace said.


	30. Exposing the Fake

5/22

“You’re up early,” Sojiro said as Chou came downstairs.

“It’s not that early,” she said, rubbing her head. “I have an extra school project I want to get done this morning, so I had some breakfast upstairs, sorry.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? You must’ve been up much earlier. Don’t work yourself too hard.”

“It’ll be fun,” Chou said, smiling.

“Well let me get you some coffee to go at least,” he said, going to the siphons where the water was already hot.

“Thanks,” she said, glad for that. She hadn’t planned for coffee this morning since anything that she could make with her kettle upstairs wouldn’t be as good. “You know, you’re a lot nicer than you pretend to be.”

Shaking his head at that, he said, “Well don’t get into any trouble and force me to show my mean side, all right?”

“Got it, Sojiro,” she said.

Once she had the coffee, Chou headed out with Morgana in her bag. They had to stop by the copy shop in Ayotame in order to make a batch of calling cards based off the original that they’d put together yesterday evening. The self-service area made this shop a safer choice. From there, it was back to Shibuya to post them in the Metaverse. She started with most of the cards posted to the entrance to the lower platforms of the subway, in the large plaza. They both suspected that the exhibit hall would take down the cards as soon as they realized what was happening. Even when they did, these cards should stay up longer to be noticed by more people.

Then it was time for the silly string that she’d bought at the toy store. It was bright yellow, letting her post a message: ‘Ichiryusai Madarame is a fake’. While it wouldn’t be as difficult to remove as spray paint, it would be distinctive and stand out. She also sprayed the silly string over the camera outside of the exhibit hall before she repeated the display with the rest of the copied cards and a matching message. They weren’t going to get caught by using Item Shift to do the work in the Metaverse, but covering the camera would throw off anyone investigating this.

From there, it was off to the atelier. Chou had noticed an odd looking rock by the entrance. With Morgana keeping an ear out, she discovered it was a fake with a compartment for a key. She unlocked the door, then sent Morgana in with the original calling card. It took a couple of minutes, but she got in and out without being noticed. From there, it was watching the Metaverse Navigator until she got the alert that Madarame had read his calling card.

The atmosphere had changed in the Palace just like before. However, there were some differences. “The crowd’s gone missing,” Joker said.

“He must fear that happening if he gets revealed,” Ace said. “We did defeat him yesterday; the calling card would make that fear worse. Let’s get going before the Treasure stabilizes things.”

“Got it.”

They were able to teleport straight to the Gallery of Glory. There were more guards patrolling around the halls, but the gates were still open. Inside the cone of lasers, there was a purple sheet covering up what seemed like a framed painting. All they had to do was get in there, grab the painting, then get out of the Palace. They could shift to her layer of the Metaverse so they didn’t show up somewhere in the atelier with Yusuke and Madarame still there. There was one more thing to do there…

“Ah, it’s the Treasure in its true form,” Ace said eagerly, her large eyes even wider than usual. “And it’s still a mystery! What’s it gonna look like, huh? We’ve got to get our paws on that.”

Using Third Eye, Joker frowned. “Do we?”

“Of course we do,” Ace said, twitching her tail.

“But is that the Treasure?” Joker asked quietly. “It doesn’t look quite right to my third eye.”

“Hmm?” Ace looked at it again, her whiskers twitching. “Oh… that’s not the Treasure? Huh?”

“Last ditch effort to keep it safe?” she suggested. “But can’t you smell the real Treasure?”

“Hmm.” It took a moment before Ace nodded. “It’s still in this gallery, just in another place. Come on.” She hid in the shadows and darted off down one of the halls.

There was a guard standing close to the real Treasure. But other than that, there was no extra security here. It had taken the form of a painting unlike any that had been in the Secret Gallery. Instead, it was an honestly beautiful painting of a peacock sitting beside a pond, surrounded by bright flowers. There were no awards or ribbons around it, though. Instead, there was a newspaper clipping nearby, with a lengthy explanation on paper rather than a plaque.

By getting to a vase display, they were able to distract the guard with Ace’s slingshot, then ambush it to defeat it quickly. With it gone, Joker took the papers to tuck away before taking the peacock painting off the wall. The building shook hard once she had it in hand. “Let’s go,” she said.

Ace nodded and blended with the shadows. It was harder to do with the Treasure in hand, but Joker managed it to make their trek back to the safe room easier. But as she got hold of the knob, a shout stopped her. “Wait, please! Don’t take that! I need it!”

It was Madarame’s Shadow, scrambling towards them. While his robes were still golden, their gleam had faded and the edges were ragged. Joker shook her head. “No.”

“We won’t let you forget your sins!” Ace said. “You must atone for them; that’s your path forward.”

“I can’t do that,” the Shadow claimed, dropping to his knees. “I don’t know what to do! This pain isn’t mine! My true self can’t take this; he already hasn’t been able to sleep for days because of your actions, and that of that black-masked thief.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d heard reference to this black-masked person. But, this was the first time they might get an explanation. “A black-masked thief?”

“Aren’t you working with them?” Once they shook their heads, some hope came back to him. Perhaps he thought sharing the information would save him from facing his sins. “They were here a while ago, but they attacked guards and snooped around the lower floors. They even had the nerve to threaten me!”

“You know who they were?” Joker asked.

The Shadow shook his head. “No, their helmet covered their whole face. So there, I told you all I know about them! Wouldn’t you give that back, please?”

“No,” Joker said. “You need to atone. Give back what you stole. It won’t undo all the damage you did, might hardly repair any of it. But that is your responsibility now.”

“Ah, I’ll do what I can.” Shadow Madarame shivered. “I… I don’t know if our mind can take it… no one else mattered, there was no reason to care. But you’ve made them matter… it’s horrible.”

“Because you’ve been a horrible person,” Ace said, then nodded up to her. “Let’s scram.”

When Joker nodded back, the building shook even more. Madarame’s Shadow was in tears now. “I… I really was horrible. And if you’re taking that, I have no choice. I must atone or go insane…” he vanished into light, causing the ceiling to collapse off in the distance.

They used the safe room to get back to the entrance where they could safely head back to her layer of the Metaverse. From there, they got back up to the third floor studio to place the peacock painting with the rest. Joker took out the clippings to read over before leaving them as well. The newspaper was a harsh review of this painting, calling it trite, forgettable, and shallow.

In contrast, the notebook paper recorded Madarame’s thoughts. ‘I saw peacocks in a wealthy man’s garden in my childhood and was immediately entranced by the majestic creatures. For much of my career, I sought to capture that beautiful majesty in my art. But the peacock is a difficult bird to do artistic justice to. This is the culmination of my quest; I had to sacrifice my budget in order to acquire the right paints for its iridescent feathers, research for months as to the proper flowers to compliment the subject, and practice for years to attain the skill for the pond’s reflection.

‘However, shortly before the public reveal of what should have been my greatest masterpiece, there was a petty quarrel I had with an art critic. While he was a smug fool, he had great influence with the socialites who swarm around art for the cultural credentials without any knowledge of art itself. He covered his poor attitude in our debate with this scathing review that should easily show that he spent hardly any time looking at my painting itself. But the socialites fell for the review and gallery after gallery turned away this masterpiece for showing. To add onto the tragedy, an accident with my drunken roommate ended up with the painting I had spent so much of myself on being burnt beyond salvation.

‘It was a devastating blow, but I did not allow it to dissuade me for long. I tried pandering to the public for my next few paintings, focusing on common human subjects that they could easily understand. While it restored my good name, it left me greatly dissatisfied with the idiotic nature of the rest of humanity. I wanted to work on my vision for greatness, but fame and fortune were only coming from base appeals to familiarity.

‘As I took this experience to heart, a great stoke of luck came to me. I tricked some of my more foolish students into gifting me their works to present as my own, though I could only take one or two works from each of them and had to do considerable work for my own spin on them. But then Miyumi revealed to me a self-portrait that she’d painted as a gift for her son, to be given to him along with a letter when he was older. It was an excellent quality portrait of the sentimental sort that would appeal mostly to women; the facial expression in particular would capture an art fool’s heart. I could tell quickly that a few more tweaks, especially taking out her baby to add a mysterious mystique, would make this painting irresistible to everyone aside from me.

‘Miyumi was a widow estranged from her family, and a sickly woman at that. No one thought twice that she’d died of a seizure, even if she might have been saved if taken to the hospital. As a poor woman who kept her art to herself, no one would bat an eye at her departure. With that, I was able to take all of her paintings to present as my own. Most of them I didn’t need to touch up at all; they were unsigned and I could put my name on them to release gradually. I named her portrait ‘Sayuri’ as a name I picked at random from a book, made my alterations, and turned that painting into my own.

‘At Sayuri’s reveal, all the art critics, art snobs, and art fools accepted it as the masterpiece that this painting should have been. It angers me that things turned out this way, but no matter. I was able to fix the matter by reporting that the painting had been stolen. Over the years, I have been secretly copying ‘Sayuri’ to sell to the rich snobs after a game of playing them for fools. A significant portion of my wealth has come from ‘Sayuri’. But in an ideal world, it would be ‘Peaceful Contemplation’ here that would have stood in place of ‘Sayuri’.

‘I did have to inherit Miyumi’s son Yusuke as a part of inheriting her paintings. It was a burden until his artistic talent showed as well. While I considered handing him over to the foster care system many times in his early years, he has turned into a great investment with his talents as well as his childish appeal to the other students. All of them were easy to push into guilt by bringing up Yusuke in some manner.’

At her side, Morgana had been gazing over the painting. “You know, now that we’ve got the Treasure here in the real world, it’s lost a lot of its glamour. It’s still a pretty painting done with a lot of skill, but it no longer has a charge that, I dunno, electrifies me when I’m nearby. Who’d he steal this from?”

“According to this, this painting is actually Madarame’s own work,” Chou said. “But it got figuratively ripped apart by a disgruntled critic who had authority over Madarame like he has over his students. Then it was burned by accident, so the real painting for this no longer exists.”

“This is really his work?” Morgana asked, her ears twitching. “Huh. But if he’s this good, why steal the works of others? Is he just that lazy?”

“Seems so. Lazy, and highly jealous of other artists that he perceives as being better than him.” She had set ‘Peaceful Contemplation’ on an easel, with the article and explanation pinned on the easel close by. “I have a hunch… if the police release this information, it won’t be for a while. Instead, how about we test how anonymously this app allows me to act? I can get pictures of this painting, its papers, and the real Sayuri, then post them to the Phan-Site. They ought to be getting pictures of the calling cards any time now, if they’re not already there.”

“Oh, so people there would already be interested?” Morgana asked. “Sure thing! I just hope that app really doesn’t leave a trace; I have no idea how this phone network stuff works.”

“I wouldn’t know how to test it myself,” Chou said, taking the pictures. The app was surprisingly quick with loading up the site and uploading pictures. The Phan-Site was already set up for anonymous posting, making it less suspicious for these photos to show up without a username attached.

There was one more step to take: leaving the new padlock’s key behind with a different calling card. They left the room through her layer of the Metaverse to bypass the padlock. As the front door was still unlocked, they came out on the sidewalk, then snuck Morgana back in with the key taped to the card. When she came back out, Chou closed the front door and locked it again. That should do it.

“We should have plenty of time to leave the area before Yusuke heads out,” Morgana said. “He was packing up a suitcase, so he intends to leave today.”

“That’s good,” Chou said, kneeling down to let Morgana into her bag. “Since we’re done now and there’s still time to kill, I want to do a little something fun.”

“And when he confesses, we’ll go get sushi again, right?” Morgana asked eagerly.

“Of course.” She set the bag gently across her back, then headed on to the station. “The mission took some unexpected turns at the end there, but we still made it work.”

Morgana put her paws on Chou’s shoulder. “Right, we got good information for later. Fighting the Palace owner early and using your power before sending the calling card can be useful. It makes the Palace unstable and can make security easier to deal with. On the other hand, making someone feel the weight of their sins is not enough to change them. We do have to steal the Treasure to collapse the Palace and make the owner have a change of heart.”

“And we shouldn’t wait too long between sending the card, stealing the Treasure, and challenging the Palace owner,” Chou said, half thinking aloud. There weren’t many people out in the streets here, although she could see a crowd ahead. She’d need to be careful of what she said there. “The card makes the Treasure materialize; the theft and the challenge work in tandem to force a change of heart. It’s likely that all steps are required within one twenty-four hour period, but the order of operations is adaptable.”

“I agree. With that in mind, we’ll have to plan further heists to be taken care of quickly. Though I think we should still try out stealing a Treasure and getting it away before challenging the Palace ruler. It could make the fight easier.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” she said. “You saw how Madarame’s Shadow was there at the end; taking the Treasure first might make the owner more desperate and able to stop us. Letting them be proud lets them make mistakes.”

“Hmm, good point.”

Back in the station, Chou went to the flower shop. Thankfully, Hanasaki didn’t have any customers in. “Oh, good morning Chou-chan,” she said, smiling brightly.

“Good morning,” she replied. “You’re in a good mood.”

Hanasaki laughed at that, even clasping her hands together. “Ah, you noticed? Yes, I got some wonderful news. Although, I don’t want to talk about it too much right now. I’ve hired another part-timer, but while I don’t want to infringe on your studies, I could really use the help in the future. Even just an hour or two here and there would help.”

Smiling back, Chou nodded. “Sure, I’ll keep that in mind. Did you need help today? I’ve got a lecture I’m attending later this morning, but I’ve got the afternoon free.”

“That’d be good,” she said. “What kind of lecture do you have on a Sunday, though?”

“An art lecture at the Madarame exhibit,” she said. “The teacher’s not from my school, but a friend invited me. Should be interesting.”

“That would be,” Hanasaki said. “I managed to see the exhibit myself; there’s lots of wonderful artworks there. So what are you doing here?”

“I was thinking of buying a small flower to pin in my hair, for a change of pace,” Chou explained.

“That sounds fun,” she said. “And it should be cute with that outfit, like a nature loving girl. I don’t have hairpins made, though.”

“No problem, I have some bobby pins,” she said.

After looking around at the jars of small flowers, Hanasaki pulled out a white daisy. “Then, here, how about this one? The stem should be secure with your hair and the pin, and it should be light enough to be comfortable.”

And it shouldn’t clash with her outfit, something that would matter as she’d be hanging out with art students this morning. “Sure, that looks good. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Once Chou bought the daisy, Hanasaki helped her pin it in nicely. “Oh, have you heard about the juice stand upstairs? They have a special on Sundays on drinks crafted with superfruits that are extremely nutritious. They’re a little pricey, but given how expensive those fruits are on their own, it’s a good deal for your health.”

“That could be good.” Chou did like juices and smoothies, so it could be worth checking out. The juice could give her some energy to get through the day after all this early morning activity in the Metaverse. “I’ll check that out.”

She’d seen the juice stand before, but the prices had turned her away before. Thanks to the treasures of the Metaverse, she had more flexibility with money now. That made fresh fruit seem more reasonable to buy. The Sunday special was still a high price, a full five thousand yen. But from the ingredient list on the markerboard nearby, it might be worth it. Something called aojiru was the main ingredient, adding in rose hips, oranges, various other berries, and a collagen booster powder.

When she got one, Morgana peeked out again. “Is that the juice stuff she was talking about?”

“Yup, it should be really healthy,” Chou said, holding it close to Morgana before taking a drink.

“Whoa, that smells intense,” Morgana said, backing down. “But taking care of yourself is important. Can’t have either of us getting sick!”

“True,” she said, taking another drink. “Tastes pretty intense too; it’d take some getting used to.”

It did refresh her, letting her be alert when she got to the meeting. Despite her thoughts, the cards and even the silly string message were still there around the building’s entrance. People were gathered all over, taking pictures and trying to figure out what was going on. If it wasn’t for Yusuke being there (and him being tall), she might’ve had trouble figuring out where the Kosei students were meeting.

“This crowd’s even crazier than when there was a line,” she said to get his attention.

“It is,” Yusuke said, rubbing his forehead. “But, I suppose this was inevitable. These Phantom Thieves are audacious.”

“I thought I recognized that design,” Chou said. “So they targeted Madarame, huh?”

He nodded and took out his phone. “Yes… and they are correct. I was going to strike out on my own today, and then this happened. Here, this is the card that showed up on the table this morning. It’s the same as the rest of these.”

She read over the message on his phone as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Ichiryusai Madarame, an envious sinner of vanity, has not produced his own original work in many years. Instead, he has blackmailed, neglected, and abused talented artists who had no other place to be, all to steal their works and sell them as his own. Many young lives were sacrificed for his fame and fortune. Madarame, we shall steal your distorted heart and make you confess your sins. From the phantom thieves of dreams.’

“That’s awful,” Chou said, then looked to him. “Do you have a place to stay now? It seems like a lot of trouble for you too.”

“I’ll be fine,” Yusuke said, putting his phone away. “I’ll be moving into a school dormitory; I should be able to request a room as it was a part of my scholarship deal.”

“That’s good,” she said, giving him a smile. “Just let me know where to go if you want to keep working on the portrait.”

He smiled back. “Of course. And, thanks. These Phantom Thieves helped me get the courage to leave, but our talk the other day encouraged me to listen sooner.”

“The Phantom Thieves are pretty cool, huh?” Chou said, acting as a fan girl again. “They helped some other friends of mine too.”

“They’re quite inspiring, although I have no idea who they may be,” Yusuke said.

“Hey, is this your girlfriend?” another boy asked. “She’s pretty cute.”

“No, she’s a friend,” Yusuke said, seeming puzzled at the question.

“He’s trying to convince me to study art too,” Chou said.

“Yes, just don’t get involved with Madarame,” Yusuke said, satisfied with that.

When the teacher arrived, he spent some time thinking on seeing the calling cards. Then he took the names of the students who’d arrived and any guests. “This display here is unexpected, but we’ll carry on with today’s lecture. Is Madarame going to be here?”

“No, he’s ill today,” Yusuke said.

Shifting his glasses, the teacher said, “I suppose that’s for the best given this fuss. We can discuss the paintings themselves without involving the artist, or artists as may be. For our guests, please show your ID at the front desk if you don’t have a ticket yet. That will let you take advantage of both the day’s group discount and a student discount if you qualify.”

The tickets for the exhibit were high priced too, but made more reasonable with the discounts. The lecture was much like her talks with Yusuke from before, discussing composition, techniques, and interpretations. This time, Yusuke still acted tense near his paintings. But he listened to what the other students and the teacher said about them, being quietly surprised at compliments. Chou paid attention since this also might be usable for an extra credit report for social studies.

Outside the exhibit hall, they spotted some familiar faces. They were an odd group, with Natsuhiko in a suit like he might end up working today, Yuina in a modest dress with a fabric shopping bag in hand, and Rio in old plain clothes with a large bag slung over her shoulder. “You’re all here,” Yusuke said, going over to them.

“Oh wow, the dreams really were true,” Rio said in awe.

“Yusuke?” Yuina asked, smiling warmly. “My, it’s been so long; I haven’t seen you since you were little. But, how is Madarame?”

“He’d gone to sleep when I left this morning,” Yusuke said. “He has been acting odd lately, sleepless with frequent headaches. I suppose it’s a result of what happened to him.”

“I hope he does confess to his crimes,” Natsuhiko said. “So what now? Do you two have a place to stay?”

“I can move into my school dorms, I’m sure,” Yusuke said.

“I don’t have anywhere to go, although I know some places to get temporary help,” Rio said. “If I could get a job, I’m sure I can make things work out now.”

“I’ll have to speak with my husband, but I could give you a place to stay for a little while,” Yuina said. “If you could help out with cleaning around and organizing things, that’d be help enough for me.”

“Thanks, I’ll do my best not to be a burden,” Rio said, bowing to her.

“If you need somewhere to discuss things now, you could come over to the cafe I live at,” Chou offered. “We served great curry and coffee.”

“Curry and coffee?” Yuina asked. “It sounds unusual, but could be good to try.”

“Oh right, this is a friend of mine, Chou Amamiya,” Yusuke said. “She’s been working as my model recently.”

“I can cover a couple of you for the meal too if you need it,” Chou said. “I just want to help out.”

“Thanks, we have a lot to talk about,” Natsuhiko said, smiling without recognizing her as Joker.

There was an empty table in Leblanc, only one this time but it was enough for them. Sojiro asked her to help out since she’d brought more people in, which she agreed to. Once lunch was served to the customers, she talked to him in the kitchen. “I’m paying for the two who can’t pay for themselves today, since they need some help.”

Looking over the four of them, Sojiro nodded. “They seem to be discussing something serious. All right, I won’t ask unless they volunteer the information. They friends of yours?”

“One of them is, the tall guy,” she said. “Oh, and I said I’d work over at my job in Shibuya this afternoon. I should be able to help out here for another hour or so.”

“Well get the dishes washed and that’ll be a good help today,” he said.

Yusuke and the others were still deep in discussion by the time she headed back to Shibuya, so she left them to it. Hanasaki had a stack of orders she needed to get done, so Chou took care of the customers who walked by. When she got a moment, she took out her phone to send a text to Ohya. ‘If you want to do that Madarame story, you’ll need to get it done soon. Calling cards from the Phantom Thieves got posted around Shibuya.’

A minute later, she got a reply. ‘Oh shit.’

Ohya: I really need to pounce on this, just in case.

Ohya: You got any new info?

Chou: Kitagawa-san has left Madarame as his pupil.

Chou: I’ve met some other former pupils too. They’re all admitting now that Madarame stole their art and destroyed their reputations in art circles.

Ohya: Great, then I should be able to get Kitagawa to talk this time.

Ohya: He refused a couple weeks back.

Ohya: Any of the other students you think I can catch?

Chou: Well don’t say you heard this from me.

Ohya: My lips are sealed.

Chou: One of the other students is named Natsuhiko Nakanohara. I overheard that he works in the license office of City Hall.

Ohya: Thanks, I can track him down based on that.

Chou: Also, have you seen the Phantom Aficionado site?

Chou: There’s some interesting info that got posted there about Madarame.

Ohya: Oo, what’s this?

Chou: Here it is.

Chou: It’s anonymous so it might not be good info. But it is sensational.

Ohya: Anon posts are fishy, but let’s see what it’s about…

“Oh hey, you’re working here?” someone called.

Chou looked up and saw Ann and Shiho coming over. She waved at them. “Yeah, hello.”

“Hey,” Shiho said, smiling although she seemed nervous. “You’re certainly looking like a flower girl today.”

Ann nodded. “Yeah, you definitely have your own style even with the work apron.”

“All thanks to your help,” Chou said. “So any flowers you’re interested in today?”

“Actually, yes,” Shiho said, coming forward to look around.

“Welcome,” Hanasaki said, from the counter where she was putting together vases still. “It might take a little bit to get a bouquet made, but Amamiya can help you get a good one.”

“We should have plenty of time,” Shiho said, putting a hand to her chin. “Actually, this is for Yuuki; the team put together some money to get a thank you present for him because he’s been working so hard to keep things running smoothly for us. I’m getting the flowers, though I’m not sure which ones you get for a thank you bouquet.”

“I can handle that,” Chou said. “You know of any particular flower he likes?”

“No, but it might be nice to have it be cheerful and bright too,” she said.

“Gotcha, and do you want a vase for it?”

“No, we’re going to attach a couple of balloons and a bag of candy to it.”

“All right, the base price for bouquets is on the sign here,” Chou said, tapping it. “Let me check on the flowers with you and I can give you a price when they’re picked.” Once she had the flowers chosen and approved of, she asked, “You nervous about today’s game?”

“Yeah, this is a big deal,” Shiho said. “It’s one of the last matches of the season. On Wednesday, they’ll announce who’s invited to the Nationals meet. How we perform tonight is going to be a really important factor.”

“Don’t worry, you’ve got good chances from what I’ve heard,” Ann said, patting her arm. “And everyone’s already talking about how well the team has proven their worth without Kamoshida.”

“It has been encouraging,” Shiho said. “And there was that guy at the last match. You wouldn’t have heard it, Chou, but there was another volleyball Olympian who was refereeing our match last week. He commended us for our teamwork and spirit in continuing to play.”

“That’s no surprise,” Chou said. Hearing her phone chime with a new message gave her a thought. “Hey, I’ve met a reporter recently who’s interested in writing an article about what happened with Kamoshida. Would either of you mind talking with her?”

“Um, the principal has insisted that we don’t say anything to the media,” Ann said.

After a moment, Shiho said, “Yes he did, but I don’t want this to get hushed up more. Would she agree to an anonymous interview?”

“I’m sure she’d agree to it,” Chou said. “She writes for the Maiasa group.”

“Oo, they’re behind some respectable papers,” Ann said. “Lots of people read and trust their articles.”

“That’s reassuring,” Shiho said. “I wouldn’t mind talking with her.”

“If you don’t mind hanging around, I can let her know,” Chou said. Once she was done putting together the bouquet and making the sale, she checked on her phone.

Ohya: That’d take more research for a good story, but it’d sure be a tease that might help sell copies.

Ohya: Thanks for alerting me; I’ll get what I’ve got together and convince my boss to print it.

Chou: Good. Also, for the Kamoshida story, one of my friends is willing to talk to you about it as long as she’s an anonymous source. She’s on the volleyball team.

Ohya: Of course, I wouldn’t release a victim’s identity unless they state confidently that it’s okay. I do have to get the Madarame article done, but can she meet up now or later this week?

“She’s glad for the interview chance and will keep you anonymous,” Chou told Shiho. “Can you meet up with her now or later?”

“If we can get this done before six due to the game, I can meet up with her now,” she said.

“Then I’ll see if she doesn’t mind meeting you here,” Chou said, relaying the message.

Shiho and Ann ended up talking with Ohya for a while in the little hall that Rafflesia was in. Getting the truth out there was good; having that help build the story of the Phantom Thieves was even better.

* * *

He woke up screaming, but the nightmare did not leave. Hunger, shame, fear, dread, hopelessness, despair… death. It was all ugly, horrible… and it was all caused by him. These were things that could not be undone; they were no longer a source of pride and amusement. Other people’s feelings mattered… really? They did and he had ruined the lives of many.

Madarame found himself shaking and in tears, unable to excuse his actions. It used to be that his fame and wealth was worth the cost that others paid. After all, he should be most important when it came to art. But now he saw things differently. Now he knew his sins; he could not look away. What now? What did he do?

Atone. Restore what he had taken from his students. That wasn’t going to be easy. He didn’t know how to do this, but he had to do it.

Amid the horrors that would not leave his mind, he could only think that a lawyer could help him sort things out. Madarame knew he would have to turn himself in; a good lawyer could make sure that his property and wealth would get fairly distributed to his surviving students. There wasn’t much to be done for those who bought the counterfeit paintings. While it had been wrong of him, he’d given them no guarantees in case of his crimes being discovered.

As he got up, he realized that the atelier was far too quiet. “Yusuke?” he called as he left his room.

There was no response. The lights in the building were off despite how it was now evening. On turning some on, he discovered another red and purple card on the table. Did he leave it there? No, he was sure that he’d left the threating one in his room. And this one had a key taped to the side with the logo.

On the other side, there was a brief message in the letter stickers. ‘You’re responsible for revealing the truth to the world. From the phantom thieves of dreams’

“What did you do?” Madarame mumbled to himself. He took the key off the card and headed upstairs. This should be for the large studio.

It was. When he opened the door, he was greeted by hundreds of paintings filling up the room. Some were hung on the walls; most were standing in stacks against the walls. Others were arranged on easels around the plaster model. And two immediately caught his eye and showed him what was going on: the original ‘Sayuri’ with Miyumi and Yusuke, and his long lost ‘Peaceful Contemplation’ just as he remembered it.

These weren’t supposed to exist anymore. No one should remember these paintings like these except himself! How? Why?

But the thing that really mattered was what he did with these paintings.


	31. The Young Occultists Club

5/23

As there was composition class today, Chou got to leave for her counseling session. She had to go to an office in the practice building for it. “Feel free to call me Maki if that makes you comfortable,” the counselor said with a smile. “I’d like to speak with you as a friend, not just a counselor.”

“All right, Maki,” she said.

She opened up a notebook and took a pen. “I should also note that I looked up details on your probation. There wasn’t much to see even for a juvenile crime. The timing of it all is strange too.”

“You’ll have to take my word for it, but the trial was fixed,” Chou said. “There was no assault, but my accuser is a rich powerful man.”

“That is a problem,” Maki said, making notes. “We can discuss it at a later time. For today, though, I want to talk about your experience with this school.”

Avoiding the hard talks to start with more friendly reaching out, Chou guessed. That was fine. “Sure. It’s been a challenge some days, although not as I was hoping for.”

“You wanted school to be a challenge?” Maki asked with a smile. There was a cheerfulness to her that seemed infectious.

“Absolutely,” Chou said. “I like learning about things and thinking over puzzles. I’d hoped that this school would be like that since was reputed to be difficult. But whenever I get lectures of things I already know, it gets boring. I’ve been completing most of my homework in class since all my teachers assign pages from the workbooks and I can usually figure the problems out on my own.”

“That’s impressive, though I see how easy subjects would get boring quick,” she said. “Then is the challenge of being in school due to the rumors? Or due to how some of the staff members are blatantly using your case as long as they don’t have to work on it? Or something more?”

Chou nodded. “Some of both those for the most part. It feels really awkward to have other students be afraid of me. While the jealousy is annoying, it’s not as bad as the others who won’t even look at me for fear of getting my attention. And back in April, they were pretty obnoxious with gossiping about me in my hearing, though they might have hoped I wasn’t hearing them. Some of the teachers are obnoxious too. I mean, I know it’s impractical for them to care about every student in their classes, but they could at least hide their disdain for me. Though some of them are good. I know Mrs. Usami likes me, and I don’t think I could give Ms. Kawakami a hard time.”

“Ah, your homeroom teacher who met with us the other day? Why do you feel that way?”

“Well have you talked with her much?” Chou asked. “It seems like she’s overstressed and tired every day. That worries me sometimes; she seems like the kind of person who just needs a full year of vacation, with someone around to listen to and support her. But when problems come up like the other day, she’s been cool about believing us students and helping out how she can. So if she wasn’t super stressed all the time, she might actually be an awesome teacher.”

By the end of that class period, Chou knew that Maki was a good listener, and especially good at getting others to talk. She couldn’t tell the school counselor everything and there were a lot of problems that Maki wouldn’t be able to do much about besides listen. But maybe there were some small things that she could help with, maybe even softening the other students’ fear of her.

As she left class at the end of the day, she spotted Yuuki and Ryuji talking together in the hall. “Oh, Chou, do you have some time?” Yuuki asked. “It’s about the Phan-Site.”

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked. Yuuki had the Moon arcana, but she didn’t have a Moon Persona. But she might be able to use Chariot to cheer Ryuji up while he dealt with his quarreling team.

“I heard back from the people who are currently running the site,” he explained. “They’re glad to get some help from someone who knows more about coding, but they want to meet up in person first. It seems that they’re some kind of club too, so they also want to meet up with a few people from Shujin to see if they can start a branch of their club here.”

“What kind of club is it?” Chou asked.

Yuuki shrugged at that. “Eh-heh, I’m not sure? Although I’d imagine it’s some kind of computer related club.”

“They can’t be hardcore computer geeks since they’re looking for your help,” Ryuji said. “But sure, if this helps you out, I’ll give a listen.”

Chou nodded. “Yeah. I dunno about joining a club now, but we should hear them out to find people who would be interested.”

“Good, then this should work for them,” Yuuki said. “Come on, we’re meeting up in Shibuya.”

Specifically, they were meeting up in the plaza by one of the trees there. The calling cards and message were now gone, as Chou had expected. Something unexpected was that they were meeting three others who were all from different schools. The girl wore a nearly all-white uniform, the pale-faced boy had a black and white uniform, and the other boy had the dark blue of a Kosei uniform. What kind of club did they have? The girl was holding onto a plush doll of a Pyro Jack and the boy without the pale makeup had a skull choker on.

“Hi!” the girl said cheerily. “Are you the guys here about the Phantom Aficionado Site?”

Yuuki nodded, not as nervous as he was sometimes. “Yeah, I’m Yuuki Mishima, the guy you’ve been talking coding with. And these are some of my friends, Ryuji Sakamoto and Chou Amamiya.”

“Nice, call me Suzy,” the girl said. Then she pointing a thumb towards the pale-faced boy. “And this here is Geist, and Kazuya over here.” Then she held up the Pyro Jack doll near her chin. “And we’re lead members of the Young Occultists Club!”

“A cult club?” Ryuji asked, alarmed.

“No way, occult,” Geist said, shaking his head. “The government covers up the truth, but there is a supernatural side of the world where demons and gods exist. They influence our world. We Young Occultists are dedicated to spreading the truth. When the demons invade our side, we’ll be ready.”

“So you’re interested in the Phantom Thieves because they might be connected to the occult?” Chou asked.

“Yeah!” Suzy said, setting her doll in her lap. “I mean, they’re stealing hearts through dreams. That’s pretty supernatural if you ask me. Then there’s all the other mysteries that surround them, which only increased yesterday!” She pointed over to the subway entrance. “They posted their calling cards calling out that artist Madarame all over here, and over there where his exhibit was. And nobody caught them doing it! Not even cameras could find them.”

“I see, that makes sense,” Yuuki said, rubbing his chin. “When they posted the cards in our school, they cut all the power for nearly an hour. Nobody can figure out how they did so without a trace.”

“We’d love to hear more about that so we can figure it out!” Suzy said, excitement shining in her eyes.

“We don’t have a branch in your school,” Kazuya said calmly. “It’s something our seniors did their best to start a couple years back, but nothing came of it. Now that Shujin is a site of paranormal activity, we’d love to have some Shujin members to look into things with us.”

“Well if it’s about the Phantom Thieves, I’m sure we can get people interested,” Yuuki said. “I know some about the occult too, though I probably need to brush up on stuff since it’s been a couple years.”

Ryuji rubbed his head. “Well, I don’t know much, but I am interested in the Phantom Thieves. It’d be great if I could join them for good!”

“Wait, have you helped them?” Geist asked, surprised.

“Yeah, sort of,” Ryuji said. “When the calling card got sent out to Kamoshida, we had some dreams to awaken our Personas and then fight Kamoshida in his dreams. Well, me and Yuuki did, not Chou. It’s unclear though, you know, being dreams.”

“Oh cool, you have Personas?” Suzy asked, leaning forward in her excitement. “I wish I had one, cause that’s something special.”

Yuuki nodded. “Yeah, they’re pretty helpful even if it’s just feeling like they support you. And sometimes we have other dreams of the Phantom Thieves calling us to help with other sinners, though that’s even harder to remember.”

“How do you awaken a Persona?” Geist asked. “It’s something the club would love to know about. There’s been rumors for generations about them.”

Yuuki glanced at Ryuji, who shrugged. Yuuki then shrugged too. “We’re not sure? I mean, how much do you remember about dreams? There was something about a streetlight, though, walking in a circle with others to pass something along. It’d be nice if we could tell you, since I know people who would appreciate the support.”

“I wonder if it’s a dream thing or something you could do awake,” Chou said, knowing perfectly well that the latter was possible.

“We should figure that out,” Suzy said. “So then, Yuuki, you can make our site cooler? And try to get our club into your school?”

“Sure, I can do both,” Yuuki said. “Not so sure about starting a club since I’m not that popular, but I’ll try.”

“I’m not popular either, so I can’t help much there,” Chou said. “Though I would be interested in having it started.”

“It could be fun to learn about this occult stuff,” Ryuji agreed. “Like demons and gods are real? Maybe.”

“We talk about a lot of demons, like this guy here,” Suzy said, holding up her Pyro Jack doll. “Some demons aren’t so bad.”

“Just be careful bringing up vampires at large meetings,” Kazuya said.

“Vampires?” Ryuji asked, puzzled.

“It’s a real hot button topic,” he explained.

Once they put Yuuki in as an admin to the Phan-Site, the three occult club members headed off on their own business. “Didn’t expect to get asked to start a club,” Yuuki said. “But I’ve given my word, so I should try. Will you guys help me out?”

“I’m busy with track stuff, but sure,” Ryuji said, checking his phone. “It’d be more interesting than doing nothing, especially since it involves the Phantom Thieves.”

“I would, but I might scare people from your club, sorry,” Chou said.

“That’s really not right,” Yuuki said, worried about her. “But I understand. There’s not much you can do about other people’s stubbornness.”

“We should figure out something to help you get along with the others in school,” Ryuji said. “But since we’re together, do you guys think you could help me out this evening? There’ll be monjayaki involved.”

Yuuki brightened at that. “Ooo, it’s been a while since I’ve had some monja. Sure, what is it?”

“Does it have to do with Yamauchi?” Chou asked.

“Nice guess,” Ryuji said, smiling at that. “Yeah. I might’ve told you some of this before, but I did some digging into him and found that he’s gotten in trouble a few times for getting really drunk and talking about things he shouldn't. Like last year, a couple of my classmates got him to reveal a password that got them an answer sheet for finals.”

“I remember hearing about that,” Yuuki said, then seemed lost a moment. “I also remember him siding with Kamoshida all the time and being a real weasel in flattering him and the principal. It’s why he’s still got a job teaching.”

“Well he’s volunteered to coach the track team now,” Ryuji explained. “But it’s really suspicious. He’s never around long for practice, has no idea what he’s talking about in giving us goals, and orders us to do everything ourselves. He’s not as cruel as Kamoshida was, yeah, but he’s just plain bad.”

“So you’re gonna try to get him to slip something while he’s drunk again?” Chou asked.

He nodded and held up his phone. “Yeah, and he might actually do that himself. See, Nakaoka’s working with me to figure out what Yamauchi is up to. He’s sent me word just now that Yamauchi talked another teacher about meeting up later at their favorite monja place, in order to figure out his plan for us. If we get lucky, we can record them talking about it to reveal his intentions.”

“That’s a good idea,” Yuuki said. “Oh, but he might recognize me.”

“Yeah, that’s another problem besides getting lucky,” Ryuji said. “Cause he’d definitely recognize me. But I know the place they’re going, so Chou? Could you get in there before us and try to get a recording? They shouldn’t know you on sight.”

“Sure, I’ll give it a shot,” Chou said. “Though I’d better go back home and change; they’d recognize the uniform.”

“Great!” Ryuji said. “Then let’s get this done.”

A couple of hours later, Chou entered a monjayaki shop in Tsukishima. Fortunately, it wasn’t too busy when she came in. The staff there let her take a table to wait on Ryuji and Yuuki, and she could pick a table right next to the two teachers without anyone raising an eyebrow. Setting her phone on the side of the grill to record things, she got out a book and pretended to read.

“You can really pack away those drinks, Yamauchi,” the other teacher said, impressed.

“This is nothing,” Yamauchi said proudly. “At university, everyone knew that I couldn’t be beat in a drinking contest. Though I have to say, Kobayakawa is no slouch himself at a bar.”

“Oh yeah? I’ve never been out drinking with him.”

“Well of course not. He’s very particular about his image as the principal. Then again, it’s real easy to bait him out. Kamoshida was great at that, had Kobayakawa all wrapped around his little finger.”

“But it is easier without Kamoshida around,” the other teacher said. “He dominated every meeting he bothered to care about and strutted around like he was a king.”

Yamauchi nodded. “No kidding. And so many of the other teachers were absolutely clueless about his dating habits. He was blatant about his conquests with those of us who got friendly with him.”

“If he’d done the same with the women, he might’ve gotten caught sooner.”

“Well he was smarter about that, being blandly pleasant to anyone who might squeal. With him gone, I thought I could do something magnificent. But it’s proving more troublesome than I thought.”

“This about your plan with the track team?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Just picture this: with the volleyball team disgraced, Shujin needs some new heroes. And who better for that than the disbanded track team rising from the ashes? Under the guidance of me, their determined and caring leader, they reclaim the grand legacy of the Shujin athletic teams. I’ll have to hire a real coach for some consultations behind the scenes, but I’d be the star of my own tear jerker. By talking to the right people, it’d be easy to get it done up as a real-life movie in a few years. My fame would go beyond just being a teacher.”

“Wow, that’s really clever,” the other teacher said, sarcasm in his voice. “Especially keeping the real coach behind the curtains.”

“Isn’t it brilliant?” Yamauchi said, too enamored of his idea to notice he was being mocked. Then he sighed. “It should’ve played out like that, but the damn students are being annoying brats. First of all, the volleyball team stubbornly stuck together to show off. I bet they’re getting wins out of sympathy. Everybody pities them and doesn’t want to be known as the team that stopped a comeback story like that.”

“Eh, athletes have too much pride to throw matches out of pity,” the other teacher said.

“I wouldn’t put it past people,” Yamauchi said, seemingly out of pride himself. “And then the track team are being stubborn brats too. One of the juniors, Nakaoka, keeps asking for their old coach to return even though he was fired. He holds good sway over the others, so I knew I had to silence him.”

“Did you?”

“I’ve been trying. There’s another junior that seemed promising as a tool: Takeishi.”

“Him? He doesn’t stand out at all.”

“I know! Not in grades and not in track; he doesn’t have the backbone to be a leader either, just a sheep for life. But you know what he does have? His parents are loaded, and his mother is the leader of the PTA. If I make him the junior leader of the team, his parents are going to be real pleased and won’t hesitate to donate money to the team. But what use is money to a track team, eh? You can run anywhere.”

The other teacher laughed drunkenly. “So you’ll get your tear-jerker and milk some money off it early, huh?”

“The real milk won’t come until later. Motivational speeches, books… I could make something great of this. But that’s only if these brats cooperate. I told Takeishi that Nakaoka was the one who revealed a bunch of crap about the team so Kamoshida could tear them apart. Didn’t tell him what to do with that information, but as I thought, he told the rest of the team so they could pressure Nakaoka into leaving the team.”

“Was he the traitor?”

Yamauchi shrugged. “Who knows? Kamoshida could squeeze info out of anybody and everybody, so I’m pretty sure it was more than just one student he scared into telling him. He was much too quick for violence, no subtlety at all. The important thing was that the suggestion should have done exactly what I wanted.”

“But there was trouble?”

“From several sides. Nakaoka didn’t want to give up easy. However, I didn’t get another brat under control: Sakamoto. They all hated him and I tried to keep that hate burning. Despite that, he pushed his way back onto the team by agreeing to be the scrub taking care of team chores. Then he’s been rallying up the team to stop being selfish and suspicious of each other. The freshmen adore him now and the juniors and seniors are slowly giving him less crap.”

“You should have kept him off the team entirely.”

“Probably. But since he seemed willing to be humiliated, I thought it’d work out still. However, I should’ve remember what Kamoshida kept saying: Sakamoto is the type of kid that real men hate. He doesn’t know his place, he’s always quick to defend those weaker than him, and he doesn’t control his emotions well. While the last thing should make him easy to control, it’s done nothing but annoy me this whole time. Kamoshida had a good idea to break his leg, but he didn’t finish the job. Sakamoto still won’t give up.”

“If you’re not careful, he’ll take over the role of the hero of a sports comeback story,” the other teacher said.

“I know! Now I have to find some way to knock both Sakamoto and Nakaoka out of the way. Maybe Takeishi too since he failed in what should’ve been an easy job of bullying, make all three of them incapable of continuing with track.” He sighed, then said, “Bah, we’re out of monja now. Wanna head out to a bar to figure out how to make the brats cooperate? Or maybe forget about this mess for a while.”

“Sounds good to me.” Once they were heading away, Chou sent a message to Ryuji that they could come in.

Once the boys got in and the order was made, Chou played back what she had recorded. Ryuji looked mad the whole time he listened. “Damn, that’s one screwed up plan,” he said at the end of it. “And all to make himself look like some tear-jerker hero? Don’t make me laugh. He’s not caring at all.”

“I don’t know if he has the nerve to pull off all that,” Yuuki said. “Unless he could get somebody else to hurt all three of you like he says. He wouldn’t do it himself.”

“Yeah, he’s too much of a coward for that,” Ryuji said. “But this is how things have been happening.”

“Let me send you the file so you have the evidence,” Chou said, getting that done on her phone.

After a moment, he nodded at his phone. “Got it. Thanks again, Chou. The guys have got to believe me with this. Hopefully the school board too so we can get our old coach back.”

“I hope you can keep your team together,” Yuuki said.

With that taken care of, they were able to enjoy the monjayaki and discuss what they might need to know to start an occult club.

* * *

5/24

At their tutoring session, Chou had to explain probabilities and percentages. There would likely be a few more lectures on the subject. Still, they needed to understand the basics that Ms. Usami had explained yesterday in order to not get lost in future lectures. Thankfully, Ryuji brought up baseball in the middle of their discussion. Baseball stats and sales numbers were useful for getting the lecture ideas grounded in reality.

They could only spend an hour on tutoring because Ann had dance practice now. As Chou was heading out, she spotted a familiar girl in front of the school watering the flowerbeds. Right, that was Haru and she had invited them to a gardening committee. Chou wondered for a moment if she should or not. She had contact with a lot of people now, those who needed support and those who didn’t. But to make people think twice about her, perhaps being involved with a school committee or club could help.

“Hey, need some help?” Chou asked.

“Hmm?” She glanced over and smiled. “Oh, hello. Not necessarily, this is the work of the gardening committee. But if you’re thinking about joining, that would let me get another thing done.”

“Well I don’t know much about gardening, but I’m doing some part-time work as a florist,” she said. “If you don’t mind teaching me, I’d like to learn some things.”

“Sure, that’ll be just fine. I ended up teaching myself for the most part. Um, but have we met before?”

She nodded. “Around when exam results were posted. You helped me with some bullies. You’re Haru, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, shifting her watering can under an arm. “I remember now. You were Chou, right? Well I’ll be glad to have a junior involved. Although, it’s not much of a committee.” Haru shrugged and gestured around. “It’s just me now, even though this student committee has been around the entire time the school has been open. It’d be a shame to have it end when I graduate. Um, let me show you what all we take care of.”

There were several flowerbeds around school: a large display around the front entrance, smaller ones by other entrances, several boxes in the courtyard. The gardening committee was in charge of buying the plants, planting them, and taking care of them. As the senior involved, Haru had permission to open the janitorial closets for supplies. The committee could also take care of trimming the bushes and trees. However, Haru admitted to not being strong enough to handle the shears well. The janitors were taking care of that this year.

Lastly, Haru took Chou up to the rooftop access where several more planters were sitting. “This is actually a personal project,” she explained. “Normally students aren’t allowed up here; there was trouble a few years back about some students smoking up here. But I wanted to try raising vegetables and got permission to use this space for it. If you help me out, we should be able to plant the seeds today before it gets too late.”

“Sure thing,” Chou said. “Just let me know what to do.”

“Great! I got the soil mixed up and prepared last week.” Although putting seeds in soil was simple, Haru was still particular about how it was done. Chou followed her instructions, using some gardening gloves that had been up here. The seeds were in plain white packets. “I know these aren’t labeled, but these are some special seeds.”

“What are they?” she asked, taking the offered packet.

“Tiny Timely Tomatoes.” She opened up her packet and showed off a seed. “These seeds are magical. Maybe not literally, but they sure seem like it. Most tomatoes take weeks to grow, around two or three months. Fast growers might take a month, but these ones? They’ll bear fruit in a week.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” Chou said.

Haru smiled. “Isn’t it? They’re not quite as tasty as the slow-growing tomatoes, but if you raise them right, they’re still quite healthy. Here, they need to be covered by the soil but not too deep. You can measure it a bit with your knuckles.”

“Where’d you find tomatoes like these?” she asked after putting a few seeds in the soil.

She thought for a moment on what to say. “Well, my family has worked in the restaurant industry for several generations. Over the years, my father and grandfather researched quick-growing vegetables like these, to find ways to meet demand. I found a box of seeds like these a while ago. Father let me take the seed box when I showed interest in it. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to best grow them.”

“Quick growers would be nice for experimentation,” Chou said.

She nodded. “Yes, I’ve learned a lot already. This time, I added some dried crumbled eggshells and used coffee grounds to the soil mix to help with nutrition. Hopefully taste too; we’ll have to see.”

Once they cleaned up from planting, Haru took Chou down to the faculty office to get her signed up to the committee. Ms. Kawakami wasn’t there. The teacher they spoke to seemed surprised that Chou was joining, but shrugged after a minute and added his signature as an approval. Due to their chores, the committee technically met every day. Chou got Haru’s number so that they could sort out when they each were available to do things.

Back in Leblanc, the tables were all taken. “Hey, mind helping out?” Sojiro asked, working on cleaning up the counter.

“I’ll be back down in a moment,” she said, going up to her room to let Morgana out and leave her bag on the table. Just in case, she changed to more causal clothes so she was cleaner before heading down to help Sojiro out.

After Chou took care of some dishes, Sojiro had her brew some coffee under his watch. She managed the steps properly and thought the drink was pretty good. But Sojiro was picky and didn’t think it was up to his standards. Every step of the process had a specific range to target for the best brew: bean roast, bean grind, water quality, water temperature, length and strength of the brew. There seemed to be a generous range of ‘acceptable’, but something much narrower for ‘excellent’. Then there was a formula to it, but translating such a formula to brewing would take more practice.

By the time they got done with the lesson, there was just one customer at the counter. It was a woman who wore shimmering make up along with a number of pins and rings. “You’re lucky to get So-chan’s instructions here,” she said, though she was smiling at Sojiro. “He’s such a perfectionist, but it’s completely worth it.”

“Thank you,” Sojiro said in a way that pretended obliviousness. “It’s worth it to see my customers satisfied.”

“It’s especially impressive that your curry matches your coffee so perfectly,” the woman said. “Anytime I come here, I just can’t resist getting the combo platter. I’d love to know the recipe for the curry so I could make it at home.”

Sojiro shook his head. “Sorry, it’s a trade secret.”

She made a cute little frown to that. “Really? You’re as stubborn with your recipes as you are with your heart. Won’t you reconsider?”

“No.” Once she had left, Sojiro sighed. “Pushy as always. But she’s a regular and not a bad customer by any means. When you work in the food business, you have to deal with all sorts of customers. Even if I wouldn’t be friends with them outside the cafe, I make sure to serve every customer a good cup of coffee.”

“It’s a matter of pride, huh?” she guessed.

He smiled at that. “Sure enough. There’s not a lot of profit in this, but I don’t need a lot of money to be comfortable.”

Maybe that lotto win had been a nice cushion for him. She was about to agree with him when the bell over the door jangled to someone coming in. The man who walked in was lazily dressed: not actually messy but it looked like he didn’t put any more effort into his appearance than he had to. On seeing them, he smiled broadly; Third Eye showed that it was a greedy smile.

As gruff as he was, Chou hadn’t yet seen Sojiro turn immediately cold as he did when he caught sight of the man. “Welcome,” he said, with every indication that this man wasn’t welcome.

“Hey, Sakura-san, it’s been a while!” the man said cheerfully. “So this is where you ran off to, huh? Nice location, close to a station but a bit out of the way for some quiet. You must get a fair amount of business here.”

“Your order, sir?” Sojiro asked with strained politeness. It was an attitude that would drive most people away.

“Except not with that attitude, that still hasn’t changed,” he said, not yet deterred. “And man, that smell is so nostalgic. You haven’t gotten over her, huh?”

Chou had no idea who was being referenced, but it was clearly a low blow. “Your order, sir?” he repeated.

Again, it didn’t work on this man. To Third Eye, there was a lazy selfishness to him. “Hey now, I’m just dropping by to check up on you. Can’t you give me a break? Anyhow, how is Futaba doing?”

Futaba… Morgana hadn’t gotten any more info from watching Sojiro about this mystery person. “That’s none of your business,” Sojiro said sternly, even pounding his hand on the counter. “If you’re not here as a customer, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Come on, can’t you make some time for an old buddy?” he said, making Sojiro narrow his eyes at him.

Before he could say anything more, the bell over the door jangled as a woman came in. Her face looked young, if stressed out. But her hair was a dark gray; that and her business suit made her seem older. “Oh, fancy running into you here,” she said to the man, with as cold of an edge to him as Sojiro had.

Unlike with Sojiro, this woman made the man pale. “Heh, yeah, I was just going,” the man said sheepishly. He nearly said something more, thought better of it, then left.

Sojiro was relieved to see him go and rubbed his forehead. “How did he find me? Anyhow, thank you, Nijima-san.”

“It’s no problem,” the woman said with a small smile; it was like she didn’t smile much.

“That guy was suspicious,” Chou said, feeling like Sojiro would appreciate it.

“Heh, seems you do have an eye for people,” Sojiro said. Then to Nijima, he spoke in a friendly way. “So what’ll you have this evening?”

“Just a coffee would be fine,” she said, setting her briefcase on a stool beside the one she took. “Interesting, you’ve got a part-timer helping now?”

“Sort of,” Sojiro said, already getting her coffee.

Nijima was taking out a folder to look over something, so she probably wasn’t in a mood to talk. Although, there was something familiar to her. Chou checked her phone briefly, having a hunch… according to her confidant list, Makoto’s last name was Nijima. They hadn’t spoken for a while, although they texted each other over Gun About’s servers on occasion. It might be something, or might not be.

As Chou put her phone away to start wiping down tables for the day, Sojiro got a message. That was unusual. It worried him. “Hey Chou, there’s something I need to take care of right away. Would you watch the store for now?”

“Sure thing,” she said.

Nijima was absorbed in reading over some papers, so Chou worked around her on tasks to make closing up easier. After ten minutes, Sojiro sent her a text. ‘This will take some time. Will you close up for the night once Nijima-san is done?’

Chou: Sure thing.

Sojiro: Thanks. Also, there’s something else I’d like to talk with you about tomorrow morning, so don’t go running off too quickly.

Chou: Okay. Good night.

Sojiro: See you tomorrow.

Fortunately, no other customers came in by the time Nijima put her papers away. “Is Sakura-san coming back in tonight?” she asked.

Chou shook her head. “No, sorry.”

“Hmm, well give this to him just in case,” she said, putting a business card on the counter along with her payment. “I’m no longer in family law, but let him know that I’d make an exception if Isshiki continues to make himself a problem.”

“Sure, I’ll do that,” Chou said, taking the card to set by the register. It named her as Sae Nijima, a public prosecutor.

Sae nodded. “Good. I would hate for that hard-earned victory to get undone. Good evening.” She then headed out.

Maybe this was Makoto’s sister, maybe not. But if she was, a connection to Sae might end up useful too.

And before she got to bed, some good news came over the television: Madarame had made a public confession, made sure it was available online, and then turned himself into the police. Their second big mission was successful.


	32. Second Confession of Sin

5/24

Madarame had messaged him earlier today, asking to meet with him and any other students that he had contact with. How did he know that they’d met up? But after discussing it with them and learning that a lawyer was involved, it seemed better to agree to the meeting. It’d be the four of them with just Madarame and the lawyer, and the Phantom Thieves should have stolen his heart. If something went wrong, at least he wouldn’t be alone.

Yusuke still felt nervous about the meeting, and angry when he saw Madarame. His dreams lately had portrayed Madarame as an openly cruel and boastful monster, rather than the soft-spoken master he acted as. From his talks with the others, it seemed that the dream view was more realistic than the ‘real’ view. But tonight, Madarame looked different from either view. He seemed much older and more burdened; his face exposed that he’d been weeping recently and he had trouble looking at them. Was this what a change of heart did?

“I can’t apologize enough for what I’ve done to you,” Madarame said after some trouble starting to speak. “I understand if you don’t want to forgive me. But I had to make things right as much as I could. I’m going to turn myself in to the police later on, but first, I want to give back what’s properly yours before the police come in looking through things.”

“We’re going to make sure the artworks known as Madarame’s get properly credited to you and other students,” the lawyer said. “I’m also going to be sorting through his properties and wealth to be divided up among his students. Do you four know of any others that are around?”

They glanced at each other a moment. He was really giving his wealth to them? Natsuhiko spoke up first, “We’re not sure of any other survivors; we only met back up recently.”

“I knew quite a few others who were on the streets,” Rio said. “But they all disappeared, or I know they died. I don’t know about everybody, though.”

“Well,” Yusuke said, not sure about bringing it up because it was difficult to believe. But it was something. “The Phantom Thieves said they called on everyone who was alive, if that counts for everything. That was just us four.”

“I, I think that’s true,” Madarame said, shaking at the reminder.

“You don’t have to take the paintings right away,” the lawyer said. “I just need you to confirm which ones are yours and I’ll be able to keep the police from confiscating them.”

“But some of the originals might not be here,” Natsuhiko said.

“No, something very strange occurred alongside this Phantom Thief business,” the lawyer said.

“Let’s go upstairs, it’ll be the only easy way to explain,” Madarame said.

On the way up, Rio quietly said, “He seems totally different from even his nice guy act.”

“I agree,” Yuina said. “Even when he acted regretful for something, I’ve never seen him cry before.”

Up on the third floor, the large studio was open. It hadn’t been changed since Natsuhiko had left. At least, until now. Many artworks were stacked around the room, on the walls, or on the easels. Even ‘Sayuri’ was there, only, it was quite a different Sayuri. There was no mist, but there was a baby in the woman’s arms. It had always been a beautiful painting to Yusuke’s eyes, something that defined beauty. But now, it felt like something that defined a maternal love.

“Hey, are these paintings unaltered?” Rio asked, mystified at the paintings around the room.

Madarame nodded. “Yes… somehow, these are all the originals that you students created, with none of my alterations. The only one with my signature in here is my own painting there, but I lost that one to a fire. I know they’re the truth even though these paintings shouldn’t exist in reality anymore. Whoever locked this room up brought them all here without our notice.”

“It seems that this room was locked for several days around the time the calling card showed up,” the lawyer said. “Sometimes after the card appeared, the key was left behind so these paintings could be found.”

“And all of them are the originals?” Yusuke asked, baffled at this. How would anyone besides Madarame and the individual students know the originals? And how would they get the paintings in here without being noticed while the door was locked?

“All of them are as I remember them,” Madarame said, nodding. “Including Sayuri there.”

“Even Sayuri?” Yuina asked in shock. “It is quite a difference, and an awful one.”

“I know,” Madarame said after flinching. He went over to the easel with the Sayuri. “Yusuke, this is actually a self-portrait of your mother Miyumi. I won’t try to excuse it now; she meant it to be a gift to you after she was gone. We’ll make sure that you get all of her paintings that I had, not just Sayuri. But also, would you check the back? I had gotten rid of the letter, but it’s back too.”

Yusuke wasn’t sure what to say to that. For his part, Madarame grew inconsolable and couldn’t bring himself to say anything during the rest of the visit. The lawyer asked them to at least let him and the police take photos before they took the paintings away. However, he did allow Yusuke to take the envelope off the back with a letter that should have gotten to him years ago.

‘My dear Yusuke:

You are my joy  
My sleepy little hope  
For a colorful future

Perhaps I will live  
And can tell you myself  
That I love you, dear son

If not, don’t fret  
You are my love and joy  
I wish the best for you

I don’t have much to leave you, just the things I love doing in art and poetry. Take good care of yourself, my dear; I hope you health isn’t as troublesome as mine. Your father and I wanted to give you a good life and help you find what you enjoy doing too. I’m sure he feels the same as I, still hoping that you find a happy fulfilling life.

From your mother, Miyumi Kitagawa’

In the corner, there was a smaller note by a filigree of a golden butterfly. It was a different style of writing, quite elegant. ‘A beautiful truth should not be lost.’

Madarame had taken him out of his mother’s portrait and got rid of this letter? There was no way Yusuke was going to forgive him now, no mater how he atoned. But more importantly, he knew something of his mother now beyond her name. There had been something in him that was always sure that she loved him; it was gratifying to know that he was right. He and his mother were similar too. Which paintings were hers?

And what was he going to do with all of their paintings? There wasn’t space in the dorm and he would need to keep them secure. But Yusuke also wanted them to be somewhere he could see them when he wanted, not hidden away. What could he do?

* * *

5/25

Over breakfast, Chou told Sojiro about what Sae Nijima had said. “I won’t pry, but I hope this doesn’t end up being trouble,” she finished off with.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” he said, then sighed. “Don’t be fooled by that guy. He may act friendly, but he’s no good. I have a good hunch that he’s here about money. If he starts bothering you, just refuse to answer his questions and avoid him as much as you can. But, I should tell you about Futaba now.”

“Who’s that?” Chou asked. On the seat by her, Morgana’s ears pricked up and she raised a paw like she might stand on the counter to get a better look. Thankfully, she decided not to.

“She’s my adopted daughter,” Sojiro said. “Look, I’m sorry for hiding something like that from you, but Futaba’s situation is complicated. I wasn’t sure how either of you would be around each other, so I kept you here and Futaba back at my house. I thought it’d be the safest option for you both.”

Chou nodded at that, getting encouragement from the Heirophant Persona she had active. “That’s fine, you didn’t really know me.”

Sojiro rubbed his chin. “Well, you’ve only been around a month, so I’m sure there’s plenty of things we still don’t know about each other. But I’ve noticed in your journal that you like helping others, and you really don’t seem like the violent sort. You have to understand, though: Futaba’s safety comes first. You’re proving that you can take care of yourself and make friends easily. Meanwhile, Futaba,” he shrugged, “well, I’m still not sure how to help her some days.”

“How old is she?” Chou asked, feeling that was a neutral enough question to show she was following along.

“Sixteen,” he answered. “But see, her mother died nearly two years ago. A lot went on with her family at that time; that man from yesterday is her uncle and I don’t want to see him anywhere near her. I took her in and gave her a safe place, but her mother’s death changed her greatly. She’s a quick-witted girl; conversations with her go all over the place. It’s one factor that makes her difficult to understand at times. But since I’ve brought her here, she’s become what you’d call a shut-in. She doesn’t leave the house, and wouldn’t leave her room if she could help it.”

“Things must be tough on her,” Chou said. “Have you tried getting help from a therapist?”

Sojiro nodded, the worry clearly heavy on him. “I called one to the house once, but again, Futaba refused to leave her room. I thought time might help her, some peace to sort out her thoughts. But her condition has become worse the past few months. She had a panic attack last night when her uncle showed up.” He then gestured up to a camera tucked near the kitchen’s entrance. “She’s got access to the security feed of this place and had it open yesterday evening. It’s why I had to take off.”

This Futaba could access the cameras here? Chou glanced up at it; it shouldn’t be a problem since there wasn’t a camera upstairs, but it was something to keep in mind for when Sojiro wasn’t around. “Ah. Is that why you asked me if I was interested in computers that one time?”

That made him smile briefly. “Right, you remember that? She knew you were here shortly after you arrived and wanted me to ask you that, and a few other questions. She’s never been a social person, so it’s a good sign that she’s been curious about you. Look, I don’t want to be adding too much to your plate, but mind taking Futaba’s phone number so she can chat with you? She’s not ready to talk face to face with you, but you’re just a year older than her. You might be able to help her open up to both of us.”

Chou nodded. “Sure, I don’t mind. I hope we can become friends.”

“Thanks Chou,” Sojiro said, taking out his phone to get the number. “Just, let’s not force her to do things. This is good enough progress for now.”

Before she left for school, she tried out a message. ‘Hello, Futaba. Sojiro gave me your number.’ After a minute, she added, ‘I may not reply quickly while I’m in school, but text me when you like.’ Then she headed off.

On the trains, people were already talking about Madarame’s confession. He was famous enough that people were quick to watch a video he posted online. This video had him confessing to stealing his students’ works and selling them as his own. He also admitted to pressuring and criticizing his students to the point that they often chose suicide, or left them penniless and homeless which ended up killing them eventually. While he had trouble getting through the confession without ending up in tears, he pushed himself through it. He also left an online gallery open with the original paintings properly credited between himself and his students.

“That guy was crying way too much,” one passenger said near Chou.

“Right, I wonder if it was staged,” someone else said. “But still, it was awful timing, don’t you think? Telling such a horrible story while his exhibit in Shibuya is still open. Maybe he’s trying to intentionally create controversy?”

“Did those cards in Shibuya have something to do with the staging? It was a crazy ridiculous display, claiming to be from some Phantom Thieves of Dreams.”

It was crazy and ridiculous enough that they were remembering it, Chou thought. It’d be fine.

“Don’t remind me of that. My kids have been going crazy about those Phantom Thieves and some website. According to online rumors, those Phantom Thieves had something to do with the confession of that high school coach a month ago. It’s all some occult nonsense that a lot of kids are buying into.”

“Aw come on, we’re too cool to be nonsense,” Morgana said in Chou’s bag.

Holding her bag to her chest so nobody else bumped into Morgana, Chou whispered into it, “They’re talking about it. That’s good enough.”

“I suppose. So are we getting sushi today?”

“I hope we get time for it,” Chou said.

On the sidewalks to Shujin, she could already hear students buzzing about Madarame’s change of heart. “Yeah, they did it again!” a boy walking ahead of her said to his friends. “The Phantom Thieves announced it at a couple places in Shibuya on Sunday, and just last night, that big name artist Madarame acknowledged that he was an impostor.”

“It’s more than just being an impostor! He admitted that he drove his students to their deaths in order to take their art. There’s even a story online about that really famous painting of his, only he erased a baby out of its mother’s arms to create a sense of mystery.”

“That’s horrible! Is it really true?”

“He admitted to it. You should see that video of his confession. He totally broke down in tears, it was ugly!”

In the school, a group of girls revealed something else. “Yeah, did you see the gallery of the real art?”

“Real art? I guess there has to be real ones to be selling forgeries.”

“Well there’s an online gallery now that shows the works as they were before Madarame signed them to present as his own, along with who actually made them. But somebody made an interesting comment on the gallery. It seems that in the week before the calling card came out, somebody broke into his house twice. The first time, they only stole a padlock and left a third floor window open.”

“Only the lock? That’s a weird thing to steal.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, in the second break-in, the only thing that changed was that third floor room with the window got locked shut. After the Phantom Thieves stole Madarame’s heart, they gave him a key to that lock, and all the original paintings were in there. And nobody who was living there at the time saw anybody going in or out of that locked room.”

“What?! How would they do that?”

“But it’s like how they shut off the electricity without being caught, right? The Phantom Thieves have special powers.”

“They could have occult powers. Speaking of, did you see that paper looking for interest in an occult club here? They want to research the Phantom Thieves!”

“Is that going to get approved?”

“I don’t know, but I hope they do. I’d like to investigate the Phantom Thieves too, figure out who they are! I already signed the interest sheet. You should too.”

“I’m sure people are going to argue that it’s superstition, but I’m kinda curious too.”

“I’d join even if it was just an excuse to have a Phantom Thieves Fan Club.”

During the initial homeroom time, the PA system dinged unexpectedly. It was Makoto. “Pardon me for interrupting, but we’ve gotten some wonderful news that I felt like should be announced as soon as possible. Thanks to their determined efforts, our volleyball teams have both made it into their Nationals competition. The schedule for their games will be posted on the main bulletin boards shortly. Congratulations to all the players and supporting students who have made this achievement possible! We wish you the best of luck in these challenging matches. Thank you for your time.”

Chou’s classmates cheered or whispered to each other. That included a girl next to her. “Hey, that was Nijima-san, right? Did she do that on her own? It’s surprising.”

“Well she announced the pants protest too,” her friend said. “I’d thought she was some kinda robot honors student who did as the teachers told her. But it seems she’s not that bad.”

“A teacher may have still told her to do it. But they don’t have a coach, right? What teacher would have asked her?”

“Settle down now,” Ms. Kawakami said. “But yes, congratulations to those of you on the volleyball team! We’re cheering you all on.”

From her desk, Morgana quietly said, “It’s being recognized as their accomplishment because we changed Kamoshida’s heart. So the same’s going to happen to Madarame’s students too, huh?”

“We can hope,” Chou quietly said back while the room was still noisy.

As the school day went on, Chou decided on inviting Makoto over to the arcade to hang out again. But when classes were out, she checked on her messages first. None from Futaba; Sojiro called her a shut-in, so she was likely shy. There was a message, though, from Yusuke. ‘Could we meet up at Leblanc today? There’s something I’d like to talk with you about.’

Makoto could use a friend to loosen up with, but Yusuke needed a friend right now. Chou agreed to meet with him there. While she recognized one of the regulars coming out, there weren’t any other customers in. Sojiro raised an eyebrow at her coming in with a boy, but he got them some coffee like any other customers.

Surprisingly, Yusuke took a seat at the counter. Maybe the fact that Leblanc was empty otherwise let him feel comfortable there; she might need to invite him upstairs if another customer came in. “I’m sure that you’ve heard about Madarame’s confession and the Phantom Thieves by now,” Yusuke said.

“Sure, everybody’s talking about it,” Chou said.

“It’s been a strange week for me,” Yusuke said, resting his arms on the counter. “Madarame raised me since I was three, so he’s always been like my father. And I admired him for a long time no matter how strict he was, even as I saw him ruin other students. I used to excuse it as there had to be something I just didn’t understand. In the past few years, though, I’ve had to acknowledge that our situation was unusual, and wrong.”

“Well you live in a situation long enough and it becomes normalized in your mind,” Chou said. “It can be tough to shake that.”

Yusuke nodded. “That explains how I’ve felt. Madarame always emphasized loyalty towards himself; he wouldn’t allow us to speak the names of those who betrayed him by leaving. So I’d enforce that myself by thinking of good things he did for me. But Yuina pointed out to me that those things were part of a parent’s responsibility: giving me a home and art supplies, taking care of me when I was sick. I was sure that he was a great man and good to me, but I see now that he wasn’t.”

Hearing that reminded Chou of what she’d seen in Madarame’s Palace; Yusuke had seen him as a grandfather figure when he was very young. That must still be clinging in his mind. But she couldn’t admit to that without explaining how she’d seen it. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me? Because I’m not involved, while the other students all seem bitter about Madarame without conflicted feelings.”

That impressed him. “That’s right, that’s why I thought of talking to you. They weren’t with Madarame as long as I was; they hadn’t felt as strongly about him as me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I’d like to hear about it if it’ll help you out,” Chou said as Sojiro set down their coffee mugs. “Thanks.”

“Well this coffee is another reason I wanted to be here,” Yusuke admitted with a smile. “It’s exquisitely made.”

“I wouldn’t serve anything less,” Sojiro said.

After taking a sip, Yusuke continued with his thoughts. “With the actions of the Phantom Thieves targeting Madarame, other things have come to light that make me question if I hate him or if I pity him. He should have been a far better man in either case. It’s about the Sayuri. You remember it?”

Chou nodded. “Yeah, it was that famous painting of his that sparked your interest in art. But it had been stolen, or so he claimed.”

“Wasn’t that in his confession?” Sojiro said, showing that he had been listening too. “There’s been little else on TV today.”

Fortunately, Yusuke didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, I saw it myself. He’d hidden it away to copy and sell repeatedly. However, the truth is that it was actually a self-portrait of my mother, one that she’d meant as a gift to me.” He got out his phone to bring up another picture. “And this is the true original, one that had been lost to the world.”

Chou had seen the original Sayuri several times, but she took a long look at it on his phone anyhow. “Wow, that’s even more beautiful. She must have loved you greatly.”

“Yes, that much is clear here,” Yusuke said, smiling sadly this time. “She left me a letter with a poem too. It shouldn’t exist either; Madarame threw the letter away years ago and erased me from this painting. But the Phantom Thieves made many miracles occur this week: restoring all the stolen and altered art to their original forms, recovering the letter, and changing Madarame’s dark heart. They even changed me a little, since I wouldn’t have been brave enough to act against him before. Still, if you asked how I felt now, I’m not really sure.”

“It’s a lot to figure out,” she said. She wasn't sure how the letter got there, but it was a good thing to return.

“Precisely,” he said with a nod. “Like, my mother died of an illness that she knew about when I was born. That’s why she painted us together, because that was the only time she had. I’m grateful her work got to me, in awe too; I’m still trying to figure out where to store our art so they’re safe. But I’m also angry with Madarame for making such a cruel change, all for a sensationalist mystery to intrigue foolish buyers. I also feel some pity for him even though I won’t forgive him. He wasn’t acting during his confession; he’s really been overcome by a horrifying sense of guilt. He said that he vividly dreamed of how all the other students died, as if each one happened to himself.”

“That is horrifying,” Chou said.

Sojiro had gotten caught up in Yusuke’s story too. “Yeah, no wonder he realized how terrible he was being.”

“It was like he’d never realized how wrong he’d been,” Yusuke said. “But if that’s so, then the others were right. He never would have changed on his own. I feel ashamed that I didn’t realize that on my own. With all that happening at once, I can’t work on that painting right now. Sorry, I need to have a dispassionate focus to do a good job.”

“That’s fine,” Chou said. “Like I said, just let me know when you need me and where we should meet up.”

“Hmm, are you doing a painting of her?” Sojiro asked.

Yusuke said. “Yes, I’m trying to capture my own mystery, of a subject whose gender isn’t clear. It’s been interesting because I’ve had to examine what I expect out of seeing a man or a woman, then how to present someone who could be either without becoming unattractive or absurd. I wouldn’t have considered such a subject if I hadn’t encountered her in Shibuya.”

Chou smirked at Sojiro. “See? Good things can come of me playing with how I look.”

“I suppose,” he said with a resigned tone. “Hey, Yusuke? I might not be in a place to say so, but I’ve been thinking. Your teacher sounds like a despicable man, but maybe in some way, he cared about you deep down. It takes a lot to care for a child, no matter how old they are.”

“Perhaps,” Yusuke said, although that clearly didn’t help with his confusion.

Sojiro was just trying to help, Chou thought. It could be influenced by his troubles with Futaba. She wondered if there was some way to let Yusuke know what she’d seen. Although, maybe not soon. He needed to figure out the confusion he had now. To lighten things up, she teased Sojiro by asking, “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Especially with a troublesome teenager like you,” he teased right back, smiling.

It helped to cheer up Yusuke a little. “Well he did take advantage of me too, but he wouldn’t have known if I had any talent for art that young. Maybe I can ask him someday. He’s in a prison hospital right now because the change of heart was a tough blow to his health. Although, it might be a while before he can meet with me. I’d want to talk with him, if only to try getting more of the truth out of him.”

“That’d be something good to look forward to,” Chou said.

He nodded. “Yes. Thanks for listening; I still have things to consider, but I feel like I can do so better now. And thanks again for the coffee. You’re a true master.”

Sojiro rubbed his head. “Strange as it may be, coffee is my passion. Stop by again any time.”

Once Yusuke left, Chou went upstairs to change to more casual clothes, then went out with Morgana to Fisher’s Delight for sushi. It was quite busy in there for a Wednesday evening; the counter around the chef’s area was packed, without a single empty seat. The cat parlor was nearly the same, but they were able to get a booth there by showing the card from last time. This time, Chou ordered some different sushi and sashimi, to let Morgana try them.

“Wow, this fish is even more delicious!” Morgana said after devouring a slice. “What is it?”

“That should be the fatty tuna you just ate,” Chou said, picking up one of her rolls that had fatty tuna in it. “This is more expensive than the fish we had last time, but it’s worth it.”

“Really,” Morgana said as Chou’s phone jangled. “Although, I wish I really were a human. Then I could try all sorts of food, like Sojiro’s curry, and the coffee, and those burgers, and even that juice stuff.”

“Half those things you named are drinks,” Chou said, checking her phone.

It was a couple of messages from Futaba. ‘Oh, hi Chou! :)’ ‘Sorry, was asleep.’

‘All day?’ she typed back.

“Well there’s bread too,” Morgana said. “Who’s that?”

“Futaba.”

‘Day or night means nothing to me :P’ she’d replied. ‘What’re you doing now?’

‘Eating sushi. Want me to bring back some?’

“That took her a while to reply,” Morgana said. “We can relax today, but we might think about training in Mementos before we move on to another big target. We can probably make headway into at least one of the Palaces that we’ve found, but our recent fights were quite risky.”

“That would be a wise move,” Chou said.

Then Futaba replied, ‘Sounds good, but not today. So, what kind of video games are you into?’

Chou: Haven’t played many.

Chou: My Dad had a Super Nintendo that I played a few games on. Though I’ve gotten into Gun About in the arcades recently.

Futaba: Retro games are cool. The SNES is a pretty good system.

Futaba: Gun About looks cool too. I hacked into their network recently.

Chou: Why’d you hack them?

Futaba: Just because.

Futaba: Their mechanics are pretty interesting behind the scenes. What’s your username?

Chou: currycat

Chou: Don’t mess with my character; I’m playing legit.

Futuba: That’s fine, more impressive if you are.

Futaba: It’s actually not that difficult to cheat that game o.0

Chou: Really? How would you cheat an arcade game?

Futaba: With the mobile connection.

Futaba: A backdoor password got leaked that people can use to access testing equipment.

Futaba: The password got changed fast, but then somebody figured out how to get to the test armors at least.

Futaba: If they find a way to access the restricted weapons again, then griefing will become an even bigger problem.

Chou: That sounds bad.

Chou: Still gonna play legit, though.

Futaba: Good luck with that!

After finishing their meal, Chou took Morgana back over to Shibuya. She had a few things to sell to the Untouchable store, so headed over there. Seeing Caroline hanging out on the doorway to the Velvet Room reminded her that she had their request to look into too. But first, the sales. She’d left the Peaceful Contemplation painting back with Madarame so it was a part of the returned art, but there were still several things that’d she’d collected. So despite the sushi and maybe messing with Personas in a bit, she’d still be good on money.

The shop owner glanced over on hearing the door open. “Oh, it’s you kid,” he said.

He was still intimidating. But she didn’t need to be afraid. “Hey there.”

He stopped leaning back in his chair, put the paper away, and got something from under the counter. “Whatever. Actually, I had something I wanted to ask you. Normally I don’t bother regulars like you’re turning into. But your sales are always a bit weird. Like this.” He showed off a white pearl.

From her bag, she heard, “Oh crap, is he onto us?”

With what she saw with Third Eye, Chou had a hunch that Iwai here might not get her in trouble. He was trouble himself. “What of it?” she asked calmly.

“Chou?” Morgana asked, cautiously putting a paw on the back of her shoulder.

Iwai smirked at that, appreciating the attitude. “As it turns out, this and the other jewels you’ve been selling me aren’t your ordinary jewels. They have a peculiar quality to them that means they don’t come from an ordinary realm. Given the number you’ve come in with this past month, you must have access to supernatural realms.”

“That’s true,” Chou admitted.

“Then are you another Persona user?” he asked.

“Huh?” Morgana said, almost coming out.

“Yes,” she said. “You too?”

“Sure enough,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I was active; haven’t called on him for years, since I haven’t needed to. In that case, are you a part of those Phantom Thieves?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “So what, you gonna rat me out?”

Iwai chuckled at that. “Nah. Wouldn’t do me much good, in all honesty.” He tossed the pearl up and caught it. “These jewels are highly desired in certain circles, so you selling them to me benefits us both. And I know how it is, fighting demons when almost nobody believes in what you’re doing. So you just keep selling your treasures to me, all right? I’ll be fair with you.”

Chou nodded. “Got it. You fought demons?”

“When I was about your age, yeah,” he said. “Still could if they became a problem, but I haven’t seen the usual signs lately. Just your shenanigans.”

“I fight Shadows in a dream world,” she said. “I’ve encountered demons, but only fought a couple.”

“You be careful doing that,” Iwai said. Maybe he had a softer side too. “Demons are tricky bastards that’ll do anything to worm out of trouble and pin the blame on humans.”

“I’ll remember that,” Chou said, thinking about something again. She put her bag on the counter. “Actually, could I ask you about something, since you’re a Persona user and might believe me?”

“Fire away,” he said.

She opened up her bag, revealing Morgana there. “Don’t mind her, she’s my spirit guide,” she said, opening up the hidden pocket.

“We ain’t supposed to have animals in here,” Iwai said. “But spirit guides aren’t animals.”

“You know it,” Morgana said, hopping out for the moment.

Chou brought out her gun and dagger to place on the counter. “What can you tell me about the weapons I’m using?”

Iwai raised an eyebrow at that, taking the gun to look over. Then he looked more serious in thought. “Dream world, huh? Suppose you could make use of a model like this there.”

“Shadows are bits of the human psyche,” she explained. “As long as the weapons look real, they work against Shadows since they can’t realize that the models shouldn’t do anything.”

“Doesn’t make real world sense, but I get it,” Iwai said, twirling the gun around expertly. “This here is an uncommon model based on a Russian military handgun, the Tkachev. The real thing started out as a soldier’s last line of self-defense, but it was still a pretty good weapon, especially compared to some other Russian weapons. Outside of wars, they became popular with criminals and rebels for being reliable and easy to get a hold of. Show me how you hold it.” He passed it over.

“Sure,” Chou said, taking it like she did in the Metaverse.

He adjusted her hold, then instructed her on how to wield it if it was the real thing. Iwai did the same for the golden dagger, informing her that it was a kris, a ceremonial dagger where the real thing was still sharp, but would be extra effective against demons and spirits due to what it was. He also bought her old dagger and Morgana’s old sword off them, saying that even if they were models, there was still a market for them.

“Now understand,” Iwai said after the sale, “I’m giving you these instructions with the understanding that you’re not using them in the real world, right? Especially don’t be pointing that gun at people; neither of us want the police to be questioning us over that kind of prank.”

Chou nodded. “Of course. I’m on probation so they won’t let me get away with any silly crap like that.”

“Well I’m in no position to care about that,” Iwai said, acting tough and soft at the same time. “So we’re in trust with each other.”

“Good,” she said.

He rubbed his nose. “In that case, I think I can cut you a deal. You’d be younger than twenty, right?”

“Right.”

“But you’re a Persona user using model weapons,” he said. “And that pin you’re always wearing is a good sign. I don’t mind let that age restriction slide to sell you the models here. If you agree to do some favors for me, I could give you access to the ones I’ve got in back. I specially modify them to look more realistic. If your adventures just require you to have a realistic looking weapon, those ones ought to serve you well.”

“He’s got a point,” Morgana said. “Those could be pretty useful.”

“What kind of favors are you gonna want?” Chou asked. “We don’t kill people, though some would argue that what we’re doing is worse.”

“I understand,” Iwai said. “And I don’t care. I’d like to see what you can do as a Persona user; there’s things other than these jewels that can only get gotten in other realms. Or I might ask you for some help in our realm. There’s something I need to find out from people who won’t be straight with me. But they might let something slip around a girl they think is just an average citizen. Might be a little dangerous, but you’re used to that by now, right?”

“Sure, I’ll take that deal,” Chou said, getting a chime in her head.

“Good,” Iwai said, shaking her hand on it. “Oh, and don’t worry too much about the security cameras in my place. They’re old, you know? Sometimes they lose an hour or two here and there in the recordings.”

“It happens,” she said, seeing that he was fudging the truth. But that suited her just fine.

“Hang on a moment,” he said, going after a small notebook under the register to check something. “Ah, here… first thing you can look for for me is a nine-inch nail. But not a normal piece of hardware, got it? It should be a special attack item that deals Curse damage when used properly.”

“We could negotiate something like that from a Shadow that favors Curse spells,” Morgana said. “That should be simple in Mementos.”

“We’ll keep an eye out for that,” Chou said. This seemed even shadier than her deals with Ohya or Dr. Takemi, but better weapons would help in their battles.


	33. Reverse Queen of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for 100 kudos! I'm posting a bonus update to celebrate! It's an interesting one to fall on a bonus update too...

5/25

‘Dreams are one way to interpret the Metaverse.’

‘Stealing distorted desires of the heart can mean that they specifically target the Treasure that the Palace Owner cherishes.’

‘How would one steal an immaterial glow?’

‘Shutting off the school’s power and the oddity with the real art might be possible with the Metaverse if the Metaverse user was familiar with both locations. Still would be difficult.’

‘Yusuke Kitagawa does not attend Shujin Academy. Question him discreetly about the Metaverse.’

‘There is no strong suspect among Shujin Academy students yet.’

‘Review police interviews with Shujin Academy staff, especially any possibility that one may have been Madarame’s pupil.’

Today’s classes weren’t particularly interesting, so Goro reviewed his musings over his rivals. There were still a lot of unknowns about them, everything from how many members were involved to how they were choosing targets. He checked with his usual sources and contacts, but none of them had noticed the signs of a new Metaverse user. Even Shido’s powerful network gave no hints.

One thing could be inferred about the targets so far: the Phantom Thieves of Dreams were novices who moved from an easy Palace to a slightly harder Palace. It was like a stage one to stage two movement, in a ten stage scale of difficulties. So they’d most likely move up to a stage three Palace next. Goro knew of several such Palaces. Which would get their attention?

The targets so far didn’t give a good idea of who they might be. They were both teachers, but different types of teachers. With Kamoshida, he only taught gym classes and had little in the way of training as an educator. He had been hired by Shujin the previous year due to being an Olympian medalist and a former student. And with some hidden knowledge Goro had access to, he knew there had been multiple strings pulled to get Kamoshida and Kobayakawa jobs there. With Madarame, he was technically a retired art teacher from a university. He had several college degrees related to art and teaching. There was an almost zero chance that someone could have been a student to both Kamoshida and Madarame; Madarame’s primary pupil in the past year was a Kosei High School student.

What connection did the Phantom Thieves of Dreams have with the targets? If the next target was another abusive teacher, that could suggest that these were former abuse victims getting back at targets like their abusers. Of the Palaces he might mark as stage three to a Metaverse user, there was one person who might qualify under that theory. The other stage three Palaces… once Goro made a list of those he knew of… well, any one of them could suggest a crusade against strong people who oppressed the weak. But that was an extremely general theory that could encompass eighty percent of the Palaces that he knew of, by a rough estimate. That worked even if they uncovered what other stage one and two Palaces were out there.

There had to be something more…

The school bell rang, startling him briefly. Right, that would be the end of the school day. He’d gotten the favor of most of his teachers so that they ignored him when he got distracted in class with other thoughts. Not that he did for most classes; he had to keep excelling. But still, Classic Literature? It was useful to know a few common phrases and popular stories to impress adults, but most of it he didn’t connect with. He read the stories, did the homework, and could pass most tests that way.

Before long, the halls were full of chatter and friends starting to gather up. They all kept away from him. Jerks. It didn’t used to be this way. At the start of freshman year, he’d done everything right: been funny, learned names, acted polite and nice. He’d gotten a fair amount of popularity built up over the months doing so. Then a girl he broke up with tanked his reputation by spreading rumors that he was creepy and meaner than he seemed. It led him to once again becoming the school pariah.

That could still change, though. The others were starting to pay attention to him again. After all, he’d been praised in newspapers for solving cases the police couldn’t, and he’d appeared on TV a few times. They’d yet to approach him about it. But soon, his fortunes at school should turn around. That girl wasn’t around to bother him anymore. After all, she’d been ‘tragically’ killed on one of the major train derailments that led to the former Minister of Transport being forced to resign so Councilman Odo could take his place. Goro knew to react with sorrow that she was gone, but he was pleased with how that particular one had gone down.

Although, the other students here didn’t matter in the end. Goro left for the train station to check his phone messages there. There were a few today: praise for his appearance on a gossipy and shallow talk show, requests for him to look into cases (but from unverified sources). In a message from the Tokyo Chief of Police, there was information to a case they were looking to solve by his powers. There was also a message from Shido, reminding him that a request from the list needed to be taken care of soon.

“I’m on it, old man,” he said with a frown. “Don’t have to nag me.”

There was also an email from an investigator that he was friendly with. It had some good information on the Madarame calling cards. ‘The design is different and more professional looking, but the cards seem to be from the same source as the Kamoshida cards. The majority found in Shibuya were cheaper copies; the original was delivered unseen to a table in Madarame’s Shibuya residence with printed stickers for every character in the message. A second original print was delivered later that day with the key to the stored paintings; no copies were posted of this one. The padlock is a Secur’it lock, a brand that is less secure than advertised; a skeleton key or someone skilled in lockpicking can open it. All fingerprints in the Shibuya residence were from the residents or known visitors; no consistent fingerprints were on the other cards.

‘One curiosity I’ve discovered is in the method of the graffiti. Analysis proved that it was written with a common variety of Silly String that can be bought cheaply at a toy store or another place with a child-focused customer base. A street cop confirmed that it could have been bought that day in Shibuya’s underground mall, but no investigation into the store has been made. While that’s simple enough, the Silly String was also used to cover up the camera outside the exhibit hall. The culprit of that should have been caught on camera doing so, at least their hands. This is not the case. The Silly String cover appeared suddenly. There was eight minutes between when it appeared and when an exhibit worker cleaned the camera.

‘Attached to this message are video from the exhibit security camera at the entrance and a pair of traffic cameras that should have recorded whoever posted the cards.’

Silly String? How childish. It was brightly colored and apparently would be cheap. But they could have used shaving cream or actual spray paint to paint their message without appearing like some mischievous child. Goro opened up the videos to look over them himself.

He had to stop the video and advance frame by frame to confirm what the investigator said. There was nothing on the entrance video that hinted at who had covered the camera. One frame, the view was clear and no one was near. The next frame, the view was blocked in yellow. And during those eight minutes, someone had posted all the cards and made their childish message. It could have been a group to get the prank done quickly.

On watching the road cameras… they weren’t set to be constant. They took still photos regularly and when certain conditions for traffic violations were met. The stills were frequent, so they should have caught someone. But on his initial examination, there was no one that stood out to him. There was a curiosity: the cards and messages appeared suddenly to these recordings too. One still, not there. Next still, entirely there.

“That makes no sense,” he mumbled to himself, flipping between the stills that showed the display at the subway entrance. These photos were a mere second apart from each other. Even a group could not get all that done in just a second. If they had somehow done that, there was no cluster of people that seemed likely to have done such a thing.

And it was impossible to set the display up in the Metaverse to transfer to the real world. Goro had tried it out for himself early on and had been greatly disappointed to discover that it wouldn’t work. Had the cameras been tampered with? And would it be possible to form the camera cover out of Silly String beforehand to place on quicker than spraying? But he didn’t want to test out the capabilities of Silly String himself. Goro also wasn’t sure about the camera tampering. If he needed footage erased, he normally used his connections to get the problem dealt with.

“So despite being childish, this required more knowledge and preparations than an average high schooler could do,” he said to himself. “Maybe an extraordinary one… an adult with criminal experience would be very reasonable.”

He sent a reply message asking about the capabilities of Silly String and the potential for camera tampering. Then he had to consider his work. Shido wasn’t giving him names of the clients. However, this mission had a number of targets that made the company Okumura Foods suspicious. These were all to blemish the names of rival restaurant companies when Okumura was opening up overseas franchises. But really, the reasons why didn’t matter to Goro. This was building a tower to knock it straight down with as big of a mess as possible.

The next restaurant target was Wild Duck Burger. They had a board meeting this weekend. If a scandal broke out tomorrow, the news could break the story on Friday before the meeting that could decide how to deal with it. It just had to be something that would get attention. As for the case from the police chief… they had a suspect in custody who was refusing to speak. To solve this one, he needed to extract the confession the police couldn’t get and be present to hear it. Simple.

Taking out his phone, Goro activated the Metaverse Navigator. He’d been given a selection of staff at a Wild Duck Burger in Tokyo along with their expected schedules. Pick one who would be working a Thursday shift… there was a Ren who would be working a long graveyard shift in the kitchen. Goro put in that name along with that of the uncooperative suspect in order to summon the both of them to his room in Mementos. After a moment, he got confirmation that neither had a Palace and could be summoned to judgment. Good. As expected, but still good.

Now, which mask to take? He took three cards out of his wallet. One was his original Metaverse outfit, one called Ultrablack Ranger. It had an entirely black helmet along with a black leather outfit that showed nothing of himself. Second was Skater Speedster, an outfit he didn’t like now but was quick if he needed to travel. Lastly, his most recent outfit card, the White Prince, a white royal outfit with a red cape and long-nosed red mask. Each outfit card had different skills attached to it, each with their own use. They were all viable today, although he didn’t really need the speed…

He was feeling the Ultrablack today. He scanned Ultrablack Ranger, then put the cards away to head into the Metaverse. Sometimes, he considered finding some way to rename the outfits. They were all cheesy. But if he could, he wasn’t sure what else to name them. All well. He’d just have to make sure no one else found out about the names.

In Mementos, he traveled to a safe room that he’d attached to his room. If a target had a Palace, then dealing with them was easy. Most targets didn’t have Palaces, though. It used to be an ordeal, searching floor after floor for the person summoned by the app. But with his Persona’s help, he had pinned one of his possessions to a room to make it his and make it stay in place. That made Shadows of those he summoned stay there.

Past the twisted rail hall, Ultrablack arrived. His victims were cocooned up to wait on him. They were about to be humiliated. Chuckling to himself, he willed the room to twist into Ren’s perceptions. It wasn’t a full on cognition change since Mementos overruled both of them. It did change the room into a fast food kitchen. Too narrow… Ultrablack clenched his fists and punched them out to his sides. The grill, fryers, and counters all got shoved aside to make room. Better. He then called Ren out of the cocoon.

The victim came out in a high school uniform. After a moment, he flickered and reappeared in his Wild Duck Burger work uniform. “Is my shift over yet?” he asked in a weary voice. Then he looked over, his yellow eyes going wide. “H-huh? Who’re you?”

Smirking at his fear, Ultrablack replied, “Your nightmare.” He snapped his fingers while summoning Loki, then blasted Ren with chaotic energy.

He screamed and grabbed at his hair. Heh, weakling. “Aaaah, stop this! What did I do to deserve this?”

“What do you think you did?” Ultrablack asked, going over to him. “Down.”

The Shadow obediently got on his knees. “Wh-what is it? I’m not bad! Is this about lying to my parents and teachers? About the hentai games? It’s normal, anybody would do it! Let me go!”

There was always something wrong with people. Large or small, there was some sin to them. “Tell me what you feel,” he said.

“Everyone’s mocking me; they’re laughing, or ashamed. Something’s constricting me, trying to get in my clothes. And my body’s burning up… ah, are you going to force me to strip?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Ultrablack said. People’s own fears were often a good inspiration. “Since you answered, I’ll tell you just why this is happening to you. It’s very simple: the world is a cruel mistress and will destroy you for no good reason at all.”

“What?” The victim shook, his skin turning pink at his imagined fever.

He took out his raygun and pointed it at him. “Life’s unfair and you’re its bitch today. That’s all.” He clicked the dial to the hypnobeam and fired at the victim. “Now, you’re going to do as I say. Correct?”

“Yes,” the victim said languidly, the shine of his golden eyes dimmed.

“Thursday evening at around nine PM, you’re going to be alone at work. You will take off all of your clothes and take a selfie to post online with the description that it is for a work challenge. Repeat those orders to me.”

The Shadow did so correctly, so the orders stuck. The company would quickly state that there was no nude challenge going on. However, the media would surely report the sensational nude challenge. Most people would take what they’d heard first and remember that, not the correction. That was the blow to their company.

“I’ll be generous and let you live,” Ultrablack said. Although the public humiliation would be so much suffering that this guy might take his own life anyhow. Ultrablack didn’t care and sent him away.

The kitchen imagery was also done away with, to be replaced with something for the police captive. It turned into a cardboard shelter in a dirty alleyway, somewhere no one would want to look around, much less live in. No, not suitable. This was bad but not enough. He shifted it until a police interrogation room appeared. Better. He called the captive out of his cocoon.

A shabbily kept man appeared in a chair at the table in the middle of the room. He saw where he was and closed his eyes. If he was homeless, he would deserve it. “You mugged a man and ended up killing him,” he said strictly.

“Didn’t do nothin’,” the man said, still with his eyes closed.

“You had his wallet.”

“Found it in the trash. Didn’t do nothin’.”

“You did kill him,” Ultrablack said, pointing at him and using his chaotic energy. That should make him break and confess.

While the homeless man shuddered, he didn’t scream like most victims. He let the power keep at its magic for a minute, then two. Than several minutes. Still, the homeless man endured.

Ultrablack slammed his hands on the table. “You’re guilty! If not of this crime, than some other! And if by some miracle you’ve broken no laws, you’re guilty of being a failure! Admit it. Or do you enjoy the pain?”

“This is nothin’,” he said. “This is normal. I won’t lie.”

All he had to do was get a confession and it’d be another case credited to him. “Fine, if you won’t cooperate, I will make you.” He changed the power to the one he’d been gifted: shattering their mental defenses so that all they knew was revealed to him.

At first, it had been overwhelming. These weren’t his memories, and there was so many worthless ones that people clung to. But as his power grew, he could will the memories into an order that made sense to him. For this particular case, there was nothing in these memories that mattered… no wait, there was a connection between finding a torn wallet and finding a bloodied knife. He’d taken the wallet hoping for a bit of cash, only to get none and be accused of killing a man.

No matter; everyone was guilty of something. Within the memories, he inserted his instructions. “The great Detective Prince Goro Akechi will come in to interview you. He will ask about a bloody knife. When he does, you will admit to attacking someone with a knife and accidentally killing them, then taking their wallet from the body. And you will die in two days. Repeat that.”

The Shadow repeated its orders, already sounding dead. Good. This would be one of those cases that he only spoke about in minimal details. It shouldn’t be a problem. After all, it was a mugging by a homeless man. People would accept that one at face value as another victory for him and ask for a case that was more interesting to listen to.

There was no money to take from the homeless man, but he had gotten some cash from the fast food worker. Ultrablack went out into Mementos to hunt down some Shadows for money. While he wasn’t extravagant with his lifestyle, just plain living took money. And when you were trying to prove your worth to the world, that took even more money to impress the shallow fools. He had no time for a normal job; this was how he earned his keep.

After he had a comfortable amount of funds, he left the Metaverse. Goro checked the clock on his phone. Nearly two hours this time; time passed quickly when he was enjoying his work. He headed on to the police station to get in to interview the homeless man for his confession. Now, the scenario… he’d followed some reports to the shelter in the alleyway and found bloodstains and cuts there. The police had the knife, so connect that to the blood in his shelter. And once he spoke of the bloodied knife directly, the culprit would immediately confess. Easy stuff.

Too easy, in fact. The Phantom Thieves seemed more stimulating as a challenge, but they were leaving no useful clues. Winning over them would feel like a true victory at last.

* * *

As Morgana came out of the bag onto the table by the stairs, she gave a big yawn. “Oh, sorry. It feels like it’s been a long day.”

“It’s been fairly normal, good because of going out for sushi,” Chou said.

“Well we should probably get to sleep so you’re not late for school,” she said, hopping down to head for bed.

“I’ve not been late for school ever,” Chou said. “Though that is a risk now with having to take trains. And, there’s something else I need to do tonight.”

“Really? Well you don’t want to get late to school for the first time, right?”

She nodded. “Sure, but that shouldn’t be an issue. Remember? Arsene told me to come speak to him in the Metaverse once Madarame confessed. I didn’t get around to yesterday or today, so I’d best do that tonight.”

“Oh, right, you’d better do that,” Morgana said, but hopped on the bed. “But if that’s it, then can I skip out and sleep?”

Chou rubbed the cat’s head. “All right, if you insist. I’ll be back in a second anyhow.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

In her layer of the Metaverse, she found Arsene sitting at the desk again. “Well done,” he said proudly. “You finished ahead of schedule despite the delay caused by puzzles. Now would be the ideal time to strike off on our own and find your own way to the truth.”

“How am I supposed to know what’s my own path, though?” Chou asked, going to sit on the couch.

“You worried about finding it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. I just want to be sure I’m not being strung along by the Game Master.”

“Ah, of course.” Arsene rubbed his chin (what little of a chin there was). “It shouldn’t be difficult to tell even if he doesn’t question you about it straight away. For one thing, the next Palace in his plans has a quite difficult obstacle to entering it. You can’t get in right now. As for the pieces that should have led you inside, they’re not in the right places anymore. To make certain that the pieces never fall into place, all you need to do is get that student council president to have some confidence in herself.”

“Makoto?”

He nodded. “By the twentieth of June.”

Chou snorted. “That’s all? It’s less than a month, but I should be able to help her out with that much time. I can probably take out another Palace too in that time.”

“That would be quite amusing,” Arsene said, the flames of his eyes flickering in delight. “And a more suitable goal for us than simply stopping Nijima from doing something stupid. Then do so. But there’s something else I wanted you to know.” He snapped his fingers and pulled his wings around him.

And in a swirl of blue flames, someone else was sitting there: her Unconscious Self. Or, perhaps her Shadow was the proper term. “Do you remember back when we first spoke? When I was divided because of the invitation into the Game.”

“I wouldn’t forget about that,” Chou said.

“Then tell me: who did you meet on the second floor?”

“My lust and my apathy,” she answered. That was easy because apathy had named herself and lust was too obvious.

“And at the entrance?”

“My wrath.”

“Outside the cafeteria?”

“My envy.” That one had spoken the most about jealousy.

“In the principal’s office?”

Now it was tricky. Her other selves should have followed some pattern. With some thought, she answered, “My greed.” That self had wanted to gain fortune through school and a good job.

“In the library?”

“My gluttony?” She couldn’t think of what other word right off, but that one had wanted to keep what her talents got her instead of trying for something more.

Her Shadow nodded. “And the one out in the courtyard?”

“I think she was once my pride, which caused her to take on my feeling of helplessness and self-pity after my arrest,” Chou answered.

“Pride turned to triste, which is close enough to what you described,” she said. “Good, you understand yourself just fine.” Then she leaned back in the chair and chuckled. “But now you’ve earned two major victories out of participating in the Game. You’ve discovered what you can do, and there’s more out there to be discovered. With the freedom you have forged for yourself, our pride has been restored.”

“I have been feeling more like myself recently,” she said, smiling on hearing that.

She nodded. “You were unconsciously holding yourself back, but there’s no need for that now. There is a need for caution and secrecy; you don’t want too many people to discover your identity as Joker. But with your pride comes courage; your abilities as Joker will come easier now.”

“That’ll be valuable since we’re planning on taking control of our fate in this Game,” Chou said. “I’m sure it’ll be more fun too.”

“Oh yes, we can do greater things than ever before,” her Shadow said with a smirk. “If you seek a better world, than make it better yourself, even if it’s little by little. That’s our credo. We’ll make it a more exciting world too.”

“It’ll be legendary,” she agreed.

In another flicker of blue flames, her Shadow turned back into Arsene. “I’m sure of that,” he said. “I don’t have a gift for you this time, but having your pride back is a blessing itself.”

Chou nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought so before, but yes. Thanks; I know you’ve been helping me even outside the Metaverse.”

“I am thou, thou art I.”

* * *

Something wasn’t quite right. Makoto couldn’t put her finger on it. It was… like a game with an opponent you played before many times. But suddenly, they were playing with an entirely different strategy that you’d never seen before. Due to that, you weren’t sure anymore of how to win.

The sound of the TV brought her back into the moment. “One of the side effects of Madarame’s confession has been a concern from investors about the copied paintings plummeting in value. Millions of yen were exchanged for what were understood to be authentic Madarame originals. What do you have to say about that?”

“Unfortunately, this may be a case of buyers should beware. It seems many sales were made with no guarantees and no certificate of authenticity, perhaps not even a receipt. With no such proof of sale or deception, a verbal agreement is weak legally and no refund can be made.”

That was unfortunate… but shouldn’t they have requested some proof of sales? Perhaps there were different conventions to art sales. Then how did one prevent such scams? Makoto didn’t think she’d end up buying art herself; maybe a cheap picture that she liked as decoration, someday when she had her own place. Although, what would Sae do without her? She was barely home; Makoto ended up cleaning the house, taking care of Sae’s laundry, making sure the pantry was stocked, and regularly shopping for some work supplies. But Sae was supporting her financially. Makoto did what she could to support her sister as well.

“I should be focusing on this report,” Makoto said to herself, tapping her pencil onto her notebook. “But my mind’s all over the place…”

The door opened, making her tense. But it was Sae; she looked tired and lost in thought herself. “Good evening,” Sae said automatically. Then she looked over and nodded. “Hard at work?”

She nodded. “Yes, trying to interpret a series of poems.”

“A wide spread of knowledge can be valuable,” Sae said. “Is dinner ready? I’m probably going to bed early, get what sleep I can when I can.”

“I need to check on that,” Makoto said, getting up to do so. “Is there anything you need me to get done?”

“I dropped some clothes off at the dry cleaners; could you pick them up tomorrow and bring them to my office in the evening? It might be a late day.”

“Sure, no problem.”

A few minutes later, they were eating dinner together at the table. These used to be nice times, Makoto thought. She’d talk about school and Sae would share stories and chat. Sometimes, she even let Makoto in on cases she was working on. But as her rank climbed, Sae talked about her cases less. Probably due to a need for secrecy and client trust. But more worrisome than that, Sae would be tired for these shared meals and hardly talk at all. At least she was trying to get a good amount of sleep in tonight.

It got awkwardly silent. Perhaps noticing that, Sae finally asked, “Anything interesting going on at school?”

“This whole year has been full of twists and turns,” Makoto said. “Both the girls and boys volleyball teams are going to Nationals again.”

“Did the school hire a new coach that fast?” Sae asked, puzzled.

She shook her head. “No, both teams insisted on proving their worth. They’ve been inspiring in how they’ve pulled together with Kamoshida gone.”

“That’s unusual,” Sae said, but then smiled. “Though I agree, that’s admirable that they pressed on in spite of how common sense would tell them to step down without a coach. I hope they do well.”

“We’re all hoping for that,” Makoto said, feeling glad to make her sister smile. She was so serious these days. “I actually made an announcement about it over the PA system when I heard the news, to congratulate them. I figured I should support them as their president.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it, but I hope that didn’t get you in trouble,” she said.

“No, the teachers and students were glad I did it.” Thinking of another thing that might amuse her, she added, “Oh, and apparently some students are thinking of starting up an occult club.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised at that. “I thought the Shujin staff was more sensible.”

“Well it’s not gone through staff approval yet,” Makoto said. “They’re just looking into what interest is there, and caused a lot of interest as their posting said that they were investigating potential occult explanations of the Phantom Thieves of Dreams.”

That caused Sae to pause in thought. “Well…”

“From what I’ve been hearing, I can understand why people would connect them to the occult,” Makoto said. “They’ve been doing a lot of inexplicable things. Even their very goal of stealing the hearts of those with distorted desires can’t be explained by common sense. At least, not in how I think of it.”

“Are you one of their fans?” she asked, looking across the table.

“Um, I wouldn’t say that,” she said, feeling embarrassed. “I’m curious about them, certainly, but I’m not as passionate as a fan would be.”

“Hmm, I see.” She kept thinking.

Was she involved in investigating the Phantom Thieves? Then maybe… “Actually, Principal Kobayakawa asked me to interview the students and see if they’d give me any information about the Phantom Thieves. Like stuff they’d tell another student but not the police.”

“Really? That’s a bit beyond the responsibilities of a student council president.”

“I thought so too,” Makoto said, hoping that maybe Sae could help her. “I’ve still been asking around trying to find out something.”

“How’ve you been doing on that?”

She shook her head. “I’m not finding much useful. At first, several students felt like this second-year transfer student was suspicious. But those suspicions were ill-founded because she’s a stranger to them. She had no connection to Kamoshida and had only spoken to him once before his arrest. She doesn’t even know the school that well.”

“Right, then she’d be a low possibility as a culprit,” Sae said.

“I ended up chasing a few other rumors about other students too, to no avail,” Makoto said. “I even asked one of the janitors about her opinion on matters. She was pretty sure that the electricity had to be cut from outside the school, and whoever posted the cards was very thorough in getting every bulletin board in school. Also, Kamoshida’s confession was annoying to take off the wall; there’s apparently some bits still stuck there.”

Sae tapped her fork on the plate. “Hmmm… that’s if one goes with common sense.”

What did she mean? “Huh?”

“There are many criminals who don’t have common sense,” she said. “But in this case, investigating the Phantom Thieves from an occult angle might not be such a bad idea.”

“Really?” Makoto leaned against the table, hoping she’d go on.

And she did. “The Director doesn’t agree with me, so my efforts in that way have been hampered. At first, it was about the outbreak of mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns over the past couple of years. There are things about those cases that can’t be explained by common sense and practical methods. While I can’t speak with you about all of it, the appearance of these Phantom Thieves in the past month suggests to me even more that something supernatural may be involved.”

“Like all this talk about lost art being restored behind a locked door?” she asked.

Sae nodded. “I checked out the location myself. If it was just one student’s work restored to an original state, that student would be suspicious. But when it’s every student, including the ones who died, the only one who could have possibly known all of the art was Madarame himself. The locked room was on the third floor, where the thieves would have had difficulty coming and going without being spotted. There were other things too… but one big problem for me now is, who do I trust as an expert in occult crimes to figure this out?”

“That would be difficult when most people don’t truly believe in the occult and supernatural,” Makoto agreed.

After a moment, Sae said, “Maybe this is asking a bit much, but if that occult club comes together and truly does start investigating the Phantom Thieves of Dreams, could you keep me informed of what they find? They may be civilians, but sometimes civilians can lead to a break in a case.”

Join an occult club? “I’ll try, but I’m not sure I’d fit in,” Makoto said. “I’m busy too, as a senior and with the student council.”

“It might be useful to make contact with one of the members to question them if the club itself would be too time-consuming,” she said. “Your studies should come first, so make sure you’re not overwhelmed with things to do. If the principal’s request for an investigation bothers you, just tell him that you need to focus on studies and student council. You were worried about a repeat of last year’s second-year school trip, right?”

“Yes, I should speak with the teachers involved before it gets too late,” she said. During her second-year trip, a lack of focus and planning had led to the trip being more boring than it should have been.

“Other than that possible club, leave the investigations into the Phantom Thieves to others,” Sae suggested. “It may be dangerous to investigate them given what they can do.”

“I see,” Makoto said, feeling relieved. Hopefully Kobayakawa listened. “I hope you don’t end up in trouble because of them.”

“Such risk is a part of my job,” she said.


	34. The Trouble of Meeting with Makoto

5/26

Oddly enough, Arsene came up in a school lecture. The original Arsene Lupin, of course. Ms. Kawakami ended up talking about copyright issues since Madarame was still a hot topic. After explaining how one legal issue was about fraud, she then gave an example from Maurice Leblanc and Arthur Conan Doyle about issues that led to modern copyright laws. Apparently, Leblanc had written a crossover with his character Lupin and Doyle’s character Holmes without Doyle’s permission. As the lecture went on, Chou wondered if she could find a Japanese translation of that story. She might be able to understand an English translation, but the French original would be out of the question.

Chou nearly looked it up on her phone after classes ended, then noticed that it was her day to take care of the flowerbeds. “I’ve got to do gardening committee duties today,” she whispered to Morgana. “Want to stretch your legs a while?”

“Hmm, sounds good,” she said, hopping out of the desk. “Don’t worry, I will go unnoticed!”

She smiled and put a finger to her lips. “I’d believe you if you weren’t so loud.”

“You just watch,” Morgana said, heading across the classroom to slide the door open with her paw. And nobody noticed.

While she was filling up the watering can, Haru came by the garden committee closet. “Oh right, it would be your day,” she said.

Chou nodded. “Sure, you can relax today.”

“Right,” she said, although it seemed like that wasn’t quite the case. “Um, do you mind if I hang out anyhow? It’s just my routine now.”

“That’s fine,” she said, giving her a smile. “I’m pretty sure I remember where the flowers all are, but it might help if you tag along.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said, then chuckled. “Sometimes I feel like I haven’t really been treated like a senior, so I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s no trouble, sempai,” Chou said.

There was some trouble when they got to the courtyard and the track team was there. Things were still tense with the juniors and seniors. As Haru started plucking wilted flowers, Chou could listen in a little. There was still some resistance about being a team; some members didn’t want traitors or outcasts. Ryuji was trying to get them to listen to the recording with Yamauchi, doing his best to keep calm although their stubbornness was clearly wearing down his patience.

As Chou got done with the watering, she noticed one of the other guys punch Ryuji. And under one of the covered walkways nearby, Makoto had noticed too. Would she intervene? More importantly, would the others on the team listen?

Someone ought to say something. Chou put a hand to her mouth and called over, “Hey! Stop acting like dumbasses and start acting like a team!”

“Oh?” Haru asked while the track team got startled.

“I know one of the guys, they’re having some issues,” Chou explained quietly to her.

“Ah,” she said, nodding in approval.

Ignoring the punch, Ryuji scolded them with, “Yeah, that’s right. How long are you going to be squabbling over this? Look, track is about getting from start to finish as fast as you can run, not about slowing the fuck down over shitty politics or whatever. Those who divide the team are more of a problem than those of us who are still trying to make things work.”

This got Makoto to step in. “Excuse me, but what’s going on here?” she asked. “Students shouldn’t be fighting amongst themselves, especially not a team.”

Chou knelt down to help pull weeds, listening in just in case. After a moment, Ryuji stepped up and said, “Sorry, sempai, people are still sore about the team getting broken up last year. I was just trying to show that our current coach wants to turn us against each other, just like this.”

“That’s ridiculous, you just don’t like Mr. Yamauchi,” one of the boys said. “Isn’t that right, Takeisi? Come on, say something.”

“Uh, well,” Takeisi said sheepishly.

“Do you have proof that Mr. Yamauchi is bad for the team?” Makoto asked calmly.

“Yeah, I have a recording of him talking about the team and how he’s trying to make it all about him,” Ryuji said.

“Then let’s hear it,” Makoto said.

Her orders must have been enough to quell the complainers as Ryuji was able to play back the recording. Chou noticed that Haru was listening in too, getting shocked at how poorly Yamauchi spoke about the track team members. Since Ryuji’s phone was loud, other students in the courtyard could hear too. Good, that would start talk.

“Isn’t that just how things have gone down lately?” Ryuji asked at the end of the recording. “He’s doing something like what Kamoshida did: he’s using us against each other so that he gets all the attention that our team should’ve earned together.”

“That was unprofessional and self-centered,” Makoto said, angered enough by it that her reserved mask was hardly there. “Where is he?”

“Not here,” Ryuji said. “He might show up at the start of practice, but then he’s gone.”

“I thought it might be something like that,” Takeisi said, embarrassed. “I was always doing my best last year, but you and Nakaoka were so far ahead of me. So I was really shocked that Yamauchi asked me to be the team captain. I’m not much of a leader…”

“Don’t worry, you were always trying your best,” Ryuji said, shifting his tone to be more supportive. “I could see that.”

“I’m sorry; I was getting greedy because I thought this was a chance I could pull ahead. But he was just using me.”

“So do you agree then that we should get our old coach back?” Nakaoka asked.

Takeshi nodded. “Yeah, that’s what we should be doing. Really, you should be the team captain, Ryuji.”

“Huh, me?” Ryuji asked, surprised.

Nakaoka chuckled at that. “Actually, now that I think of it, you have been working your butt off to keep us on track and stop arguing. So yeah, it should be you.”

“Anybody object now?” Takeshi asked.

He was answered by a chorus of no.

Ryuji rubbed his head. “Ah, well if you guys are fine with it, sure. But then you’ve got to get to today’s sprints! So finish warming up!”

“Yes!” the others said, cheered and relieved.

Makoto nodded. “That’s good, but Sakamoto? You should get that eye looked at before it swells up too much. Come, I’ll go to the nurse’s office with you.”

Ryuji sighed. “All right, guess I should. Takeisi, take down everyone’s time and keep things civil.”

“I’ll do my best,” Takeisi said.

“And I have some ideas on who you can share that recording with to get something done about your coach in a timely manner,” Makoto said as they headed off.

“I’m glad that worked out,” Chou said.

Haru nodded. “Mmhmm, it seems like this is how things should be. A leader should care about their group.” Then she shrugged. “I haven’t really been involved in a lot here at school; I got into this committee by chance. But thanks to that, I often see things like that and know a bit more than others about what’s going on around school. Not everything, of course, but sometimes unexpected things. Like, did you know there’s a cat around school?”

“Are you talking about me?” Morgana asked, hopping through a bush towards them.

Looking delighted, Haru laughed. “Ah, yes, this kitty! I wonder if he belongs to a teacher.”

“Actually, she’s my buddy,” Chou said, holding a hand up so Morgana gave her a kitty hi-five. “Her name is Morgana.”

“Oh, is that so?” Haru asked. “She’s an elegant kitty; a black and white cat like this seems like they’re wearing a fine suit.”

“But I’m a phantom thief!” Morgana said. “I steal from jerks in fine suits to help out the poor.”

“She reminds me of a bandit,” Chou said. “Just don’t tell others that I bring my cat along to school.”

Haru nodded. “If she’s not causing problems, I don’t see why she can’t be here. Just, I hope she’s not taking care of her business around the flowers.”

“I would not,” Morgana said. “Maybe near a tree, they can take it.”

“I don’t think she has been,” Chou said.

When they were putting things back and cleaning up, Haru checked her phone and sighed on seeing something there. But she was quick to cover it up with a smile and tell her not to worry about it. She had to catch a ride back home, so left as soon as she could. As she did, Chou found that she’d gotten a message too.

It was Ryuji. ‘I saw you back there. Hey, want to grab something to eat in a bit? Makoto’s helping me talk with some staff who’ll press the principal into helping us.’

‘Sure, I’ll be up front,’ she replied, then took her Tarot book to study at the nook with the vending machines.

When Ryuji came out, he had a bandage over his eye. They headed out to Ogikubo for ramen, getting in his favored shop before the dinner crowd created a line. “My eye’s going to be fine, I’ll just have a black one for a few days,” he said. Still, he frowned. “I just hope this doesn’t worry Mom too much.”

“Is she going to make a fuss over you?” Chou asked.

“Probably,” Ryuji said, although he didn’t seem to mind. “I don’t think I got to tell you the whole story yet, but my father was a real asshole. He’d get drunk and beat her regularly. But there was a time he hurt me pretty bad; that finally pushed her to leave him although it took all of her courage to do so.”

“Good thing she was brave enough,” Chou said.

He nodded. “Yeah, and then there was that mess with Kamoshida when he broke my leg. I’m worried about her getting too worked up over this; she doesn’t need that kind of stress on her. I’ll have to reassure her that it was a one time mistake and shouldn’t happen again.”

“You can tell her it ended with the team naming you the unofficial captain,” she suggested.

“Hey, that might actually work,” Ryuji said, brightening up at that. “I wasn’t expecting Takeisi of all people to suggest that, or anybody. And then Makoto-sempai helping out? That was incredible. I thought she was just some bland honors student, but she’s actually not that bad. Though I wouldn’t want to make her mad.”

“Is she the sort that’d smack sense into a fool?” Chou asked.

He laughed. “She would! If she got that riled up about something. As it was, she knew just who would bully Kobayakawa into cooperating. She mentioned to me that she knows the principal plays favorites, which included Yamauchi and Kamoshida. But it looks pretty likely now that we’ll get our old coach his job back, as the replacement boy’s gym coach too. And I might even become the official team captain.” Then he sighed a bit dramatically. “But then I’d have to be responsible and shit, right?”

“You already are responsible,” she teased him.

“You think?” he asked, unsure of how sincere she was being.

“I was teasing you, but yeah, I think so,” she said.

“I just need to make sure that I don’t mess up this chance I’ve got now,” Ryuji said. They started chatting over lighter things, then parted ways after finishing their meal.

On arriving in Shibuya, Chou got a message from Futaba. ‘Hey, mind testing something out for me?’

She found a spot against the wall to not be bothered before replying, ‘What’ve you got in mind?’

Futaba: I checked your Gun About profile and saw that you haven’t gotten rid of the Climb skill.

Futaba: go max that.

Chou: Why? It’s not popular, but I’ve found some uses for it.

Futaba: My datamining suggests that it could be more useful than players give it credit for.

Futaba: You should be able to pull off some crazy nonsense as a stealth build with max Climb.

Chou: I don’t think I can max it tonight, but I can start working towards that.

Futaba: Great!

Futaba: and get more gear to lower detection, that’ll help.

Chou: That was my plan.

Chou: You interested in playing?

Futaba: Not really.

Futaba: Though if they came out with a PC version, I’d grab it as soon as I could!

Since she’d asked, Chou spent a couple hours playing Gun About. It helped to recall what Iwai had taught her about handling a gun; she had better control over her shots and the movement buttons as a result. As she was getting better, she could get through longer sessions on bonus tokens. She managed to increase her Climb skill and discovered that along with increasing climb speed, it let her cling onto some walls. Some of the more annoying enemies were ones who crawled along the ceilings and dropped down on top of a player. Once she was on the wall with them, she could shoot them off and leave them vulnerable for longer than normal.

She even got a spectator out of her play, so that was nice.

* * *

5/27

As it was Friday, Chou still couldn’t meet with Makoto. She left for Yongen-Jaya to do a clinical trial with Dr. Takemi. The medicine she took today was another strong dose, leaving her lying on the clinic bed. This time, she managed to keep awake. Tae checked her every few minutes to she how alert she was.

“This is good,” she said after an hour. “Hey, I’ve been thinking over something. I told you some of the story last time, but not the more important parts. Think you can listen?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Chou said. Morgana looked over, turning her ears in interest.

“I got into developing medicine because medicine saved my life as a child,” Tae said. “My parents allowed me to participate in a clinical trial just as you are; the drug being tested allowed me and other sick children to return to a normal life without ending up permanently handicapped. After graduating, I stuck with the university and the pharmaceutical company connected with it.

“This drug that I’m working on is part of a theoretical treatment for Crawford-Ende’s disease. It’s a rare condition in which the body’s immune system begins attacking other cells. When it turns on the patient’s muscles, the condition becomes fatal. There’s not much information on this disease because it is so rare; patients we can perform tests and studies on don’t appear often. But the drug company was working on a promising theory, and we had a patient to work with. Here.” She unpinned a photo off a nearby bulletin board and showed it to her. It was a small pale girl, smiling with a missing tooth. “This is Miwa-chan; she’s got a bright spirit, always finding reasons to smile even though her illness leaves her feeling weak and pained in seemingly random ways.”

“Well I’m glad to know I’m helping a spirited girl like that,” Chou said.

Tae smiled as she put the photo back in its place. “That’s good. She’s still being treated at the university hospital, but what they can do for her now is just relieving the symptoms, not treating the condition. The drug you’re helping me test is to better target the destructive cells. Part of the reason I’m drawing blood every time is to make sure it’s not turning on your healthy cells. That should not happen. But if it does, I can simply stop the trial with you, give you some boosters to counter that, and observe you for a few months. It’s been fine so far.”

“I trust you in that,” she said.

“My goal is to cure Miwa-chan, but I’m not going to sacrifice someone else’s health in the process,” Tae said, determined and confidant. It was quite a change from her usual languid attitude. “I’m also using the samples to test the interactions between your blood cells, the destructive cell samples, and the drug. That’s promising too, so we’re getting close. But the weakness from the drug is a part of the process. The body should be relaxed and still while the drug and other parts of the treatment are at work. The process would also aim towards getting the body to produce more defensive immune cells and train them to fight the destructive ones. But once this part of the treatment is perfected, we can do proper trials of the full program with a patient like Miwa.”

“Your other medicines are helping us, so this is worth it,” Chou said.

Tae then pointed a pen to her. “So you two are those Phantom Thieves of Dreams, huh? I’ve been seeing reports all over about what you’re doing.”

“Is that a problem?” Chou asked.

She shook her head. “No, doesn’t matter to me. It reminded me of something from when I was in college. Have you heard of cognitive psience?”

“No, but cognitions and psychology are pretty important to what we do,” she said.

Tae sat back in her chair. “Well I don’t know a lot about it myself, but it caught my attention while I was doing graduate studies. There was a woman at the university named Wakaba Isshiki who was pioneering alternative methods of psychological treatment. You see, mental illness isn’t easy to treat, especially in criminals with distorted mental patterns. The articles I read are rather much for a layman, but her theory was about accessing a mental landscape where a patient’s distorted thoughts were easier to ascertain and change. Apparently the mentalscapes are already out there. If a person could access them, treating many problems like addictions and maladaptive habits could become more effective. It all sounds much like the changes of heart you cause by stealing distorted desires.”

“It’s more technical, but it sounds like what we do,” Morgana said.

Chou related that to Tae. “The mental landscapes are pretty dangerous, though. The mind has its own immune systems in that kind of place.”

“Makes sense,” Tae said, tapping her fingers on her clipboard. “You know, now that word is getting out about you, I can almost guarantee that somebody’s going to raise objections to your methods by claiming that you’re brainwashing your targets into confessing, entirely against their will.”

“Our targets are people who won’t change because they think they’re doing nothing wrong,” Chou said. “Or they enjoy what they’re doing even as it hurts many others.”

“I’m with you on that,” she said. “As it is, the first step to change is wanting to change. And if a criminal doesn’t want to change, nobody’s going to make them change by normal means. Just don’t let it get to your head, alright? Don’t forget that you’re aiming to help others.”

“Sure thing,” Chou said, even though her aim was revenge in time. But helping others, that was a secondary goal.

“I won’t let you forget it,” Morgana said confidently.

“Is there anything on Dr. Isshiki’s research that might be accessible to laymen?” Chou asked. That would be useful to read.

Unfortunately, she shook her head. “Sorry, but she passed away a couple of years ago without publishing a final report on her research.” Tae frowned a moment. “Actually, I tried looking something up yesterday when I thought of it. There wasn’t anything online; we might have to search through the university’s library for those journals where I read the initial reports. But you wouldn’t know how to read those and I’m not welcome around there anymore. However, I did find something that could help you.”

“What is it?” Chou asked.

“It’s plans for support accessories that would be most useful for someone like you who explores alternative realms,” she explained. “I might even be able to improve on them, but the materials could be tough to find. I could make some for you to test out for me, but you’d need to help cover the material cost to make it worthwhile for me. Can you give me three thousand yen as an investment?”

She wasn’t explaining what kind of support it was, but trusting her had worked so far. “Sure, I can afford that now.”

“Thanks, I’m sure it’ll be worth it for both of us,” Tae said. “I should be focusing on the medicine for Miwa, but the information on conditions Persona users face is poorly recorded and often steeped in the occult. It presents an irresistible draw to me to fill in the scientific blanks.”

“I get you,” Chou said.

Once most of the weakness passed, Chou went back to Leblanc to take the rest of the evening easy.

* * *

5/28

On Saturday, Chou had gardening duties again. Haru wasn’t there this time, apologizing for not being able to stay. But it didn’t take long to do the watering and weeding (and in fact, she found no weeds at all). She did spot Makoto still around school, speaking with a teacher in the courtyard. It might be a good day to catch her.

“Oh, Chou!” It was Ann, coming into the courtyard with Shiho. “There you are. We were going to do some summer clothes shopping. Wanna come with?”

It did feel like it had been a while since she’d hung out with Ann beyond their lunchs and tutoring, and much longer with Shiho. But that was partly because she’d been keeping Ann company with Shiho busy with practice, only now Ann had dance lessons too. There was still a long time until she had to get Makoto’s trust. But if she put it off again, Chou knew she had to get started with it next week.

Then Shiho added, “Yeah, I kinda need a break from all this intense focus on competing. I mean, I love playing and all, but I want to be focused for these games, not tired.”

“I get it, a change of pace is nice,” Chou said. “And I could use some more variety with clothes, so sure.”

“All right!” Ann said. “We already decided on going to Takenoko Street, so let’s get going.”

It was another fun afternoon, finding some cool comfortable clothes for summer while still trying to prove to Ann that she knew more about fashion than she thought. There was a lot of laughing and joking around, making some other customers shake their heads. When Futaba texted to ask what she was doing, Chou responded by sending a clip of Ann showing off her new dance moves while wearing big ribbons on her ponytails. Shiho got in on it too, taking her hand for a bow.

She responded with, ‘Wow, your friends are hawt.’

‘I know a lot of people like that somehow,’ she replied.

“So who is that?” Ann asked, putting the ribbons back.

“Another friend of mine,” Chou said. “You heard that I live over a coffee shop, right? Futaba is the owner’s daughter, but she’s really shy. I haven’t even seen her in person.”

“Huh, really?” Shiho asked, her eyes wide at that.

Chou nodded. “I’m showing her what things are like outside our neighborhood. Hopefully I find something that interests her enough that she’ll want to meet me face to face.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Shiho said. “That’s really nice of you, Chou. I suppose you can’t force someone out of their shell. But maybe if you give them peeks of various fun things, something will entice them out.”

“Like baiting out a fish?” Ann asked. “Hey, maybe she’d come out if you gave her pictures of tasty food like crepes or sushi?”

Chou and Shiho laughed. “Maybe it’d work,” Chou said. “There’s a folktale of befriending a lion by leaving it food and staying within sight while it eats, getting closer little by little.”

“Yeah, but why’d you want to befriend a lion?” Ann asked, tilting her head.

“I’d befriend a lion to train it into my awesome bodyguard,” Shiho said with a big grin.

“And wait, you say you live above a coffee shop?” Ann asked. “That’s so cool! Can we go?”

“Sure, if you want some curry for dinner to go with it,” Chou said. “That’s what Sojiro specializes in, curry and coffee.”

“Huh?” Ann asked.

“It smells amazing in there,” Shiho said. “I’ve been wanting to try it out, but haven’t been in that area again.”

“That taste is so addicting that you’ll be coming back for more,” Chou said as if warning them. “How about it?”

“Okay, now I have to try this stuff,” Ann said.

They headed to Yongen-Jaya once done with their shopping, getting a table for themselves at Leblanc. At Ann’s idea, Chou texted Futaba asking if she wanted a call so she could listen in on their conversation. Futaba did agree to it; she didn’t say anything during the conversation, while Chou, Ann, and Shiho didn’t mention her specifically. But it was fun, talking about food and things they could do once Shiho was done with volleyball competitions.

Once they split up, Chou picked up her phone. “I’m going to hang up now,” she told Futaba. When there wasn’t a response after a few seconds, she ended the call. A message had come in not that long ago, so she checked it.

It was Ohya. ‘Hey, care to meet up? I’m at the usual place.’

Chou told her she’d be over. Morgana still wasn’t interested, so Chou changed out of her uniform and headed out on her own. Before she got to the bar, she stopped by a flower shop in Shinjuku. Hanasaki had recommended it for the plant up in her room. The plant nutrients in Rafflesia had perked up the plant a little, but her boss said that this shop would have a mix better suited to the plant. With that bought, she went over to something she’d noticed last time: an entrance to the Velvet Room here in Shinjuku.

Since Morgana wasn’t with her, Chou brought out her phone and lowered her aura. People shouldn’t notice her and if they did, they’d think she was just checking her phone. The visit also technically wouldn’t take much time on this side too. Tonight, Caroline was outside the door. “Huh, you long to be imprisoned, Inmate?”

“Yeah, for a bit,” she said. She needed to try for Jack Front again, plus she wanted a couple of Personas for her confidants: the Devil for Ohya tonight and a High Priestess for Makoto later.

“All right, get in,” Caroline said. “Just be quiet; the Master is asleep.”

“Really?” she asked, skeptically.

“Really,” Caroline said, rolling her eyes.

They went in. Igor was sitting at his table, but as Caroline had said, he was asleep with his head resting on his hand. Sitting down to speak with the wardens quietly, Chou found a fusion that would result in the Persona she wanted. According to Third Eye, Jack Frost would learn Mabufu naturally. Chou watched the fusion and got a surprise; her link to Morgana was considered enough to boost Jack Frost up to the point where he learned the spell. That was simple. Then again, it was their first request.

“Ah, this Persona does meet our request,” Justine said, checking her clipboard. “Good job.”

“Not that it was hard by any stretch of the imagination,” Caroline said, tapping her baton against her shoulder. “You know why?”

In her mind, Chou called Jack Frost over to her side. “I could’ve gotten him Mabufu just by fighting with him, but my Magician Confidant was strong enough to make him stronger off the bat.”

Jack Frost appeared in a puff of snowflakes. “Hee-ho, thanks for that!”

“No problem,” Chou said, though it helped her just as much.

Justine nodded. “Yes, that is the obvious benefit of building up your Confidants. If your confidants have enough trust in you, you may even summon a Persona that is stronger than yourself. It won’t be much stronger, but it could be an edge until you catch up.”

Caroline turned to her twin. “So then why’s this Persona on the list?”

“Hmm…” Justine looked at her list longer.

“Is it because I’m super cute?” Jack Frost asked, putting a hand to his chin. “Or because I’m a multi-dimensional mascot destined to take over the world?”

“Multi-dimensional?” Justine asked. Both twins were staring at Jack Frost.

“Duh,” Jack Frost said, rolling his eyes.

“I thought you looked like a mascot,” Chou said. “But I couldn’t find what you were a mascot for.”

“That’s because I’m multi-dimensional, hee-ho!” he replied. “My company is from beyond the Veil! So I can’t tell you, sorry. But you know what I can do? If you help spread my appeal in this dimension, I’ll let you summon the whole Jack family, hee-ho!”

“It wouldn’t be hard to make you more popular, so sure,” Chou said.

“Then I’ll take over the world!” Jack Frost said, twirling around. He then handed her a card. “And here-hee-ho! Here’s how you get Jack Personas! There’s a few of them that’ll take more work, but we’re always hee-appy to help Tricksters.”

“Thanks,” Chou said, looking over the list. Some were simple, like Pyro Jack (but she’d already made a contract with him). Others like Black Frost required some kind of item, while others like King Frost required more than two Personas. She offered the card to the twins. “Hey, the executions won’t work for some of these.”

“They won’t?” Caroline asked.

“We’re only cleared to let her fuse two Personas,” Justine explained. “There are means to fuse more than that, but we’d need the Master’s permission. And some merely require permission from the spirit that the Persona embodies. Particularly proud or powerful spirits won’t lend their powers to just any summoner.”

“Hee-ho!” Jack Frost interrupted.

“H-hey, keep quiet,” Caroline hissed. “The Master is asleep.”

“So what?” Jack Frost asked. “I was just gonna say, there’ll be something special if she summons all the Jacks as her Personas! We’re a strong family, hee-ho! I won’t say what, but it’ll be well worth it.” He then vanished back into a mask that vanished into her glasses.

“Actually, he’s pretty weak,” Caroline said. “So are all your Personas, Inmate. You have a long ways to go to defeat ruin.”

Justine tilted her head. “For his rank, Jack Frost is a strong Persona. None of the other Jacks are on our list. But if we want to see all these Personas, well…”

“Well what?” Caroline asked, tapping her foot.

“We should speak of it when the Inmate leaves,” Justine said, turning back to her list. “We’ll work on helping with summoning the Jacks, if that’s what you want.”

“It would be interesting,” Chou said, hanging onto the card to put into her bag once she left. “So what’s next?”

She looked a moment longer. “That would be, a Shiisha with the spell Frei. Do you have any other business with us this visit?”

“Sure,” Chou said, although all she did was call on a Succubus for Ohya and an Apsaras for Makoto. She’d work on figuring out the Shiisha next time. With the three new Personas, Chou headed out to Crossroads.

There were a few other customers this time, at one of the tables. Ohya was at the bar, drinking as before. “Oh hey, it’s my favorite informer,” she said with a big smile. “Come here, sit down cause I got something to show ya. I’ll buy you a drink too, this is great.”

“Ahem,” Lala said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What, it’s not like I’m buying her sake or something,” Ohya said. “Tea okay with you? It’s not hot outside yet.”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Chou said, sitting by Ohya. There was a newspaper on the counter already. On the front of it, there was the start of the article on Madarame.

Ohya tapped the paper even though she’d already noticed it. “Anyhow, check this out! The chief put my article on the front page! It’s not my first front-pager, but it’s still a pretty big victory. You can keep this copy, free of charge.”

“Thanks,” she said, pulling the paper over to skim it.

After taking another drink, she explained, “Of course, the Madarame confession and that fuss with the calling cards has been all over the news, everywhere you go. But thanks to your info and what I’d already dug up in my investigation, this article can be considered the first in-depth story about the scandal. In the news biz, that is a big deal.”

“Even ahead of the TV news?” Chou asked, feeling from Succubus that it was a good question.

She nodded. “By a long shot; they could only report what they were getting from the police and other easy sources. When I first pressed the Chief about putting in the Madarame article this week, he was reluctant since I hadn’t gotten undeniable proof. But once Wednesday evening came around with the confession, he called me straight away and told me to make it as good as I could. So I had to bust out another thousand words to add back in stuff he’d told me to cut and then some.”

“Sounds like a lot,” she said.

“Not really,” Ohya said. “Though it is a lot for a newspaper article, and to get it done up with a deadline of thirty-six hours in quality paper form? That was quite an effort. But I got it out.”

“Here you are,” Lala said, setting the cup in front of her. “And that is one of your better articles, Ichiko-chan. I’ve already heard people talking about it, even referring the article to others who want to know more about that Madarame story.”

“Well it’s got just about everything,” Ohya said, waving to the paper. “The fraud, the students left homeless and penniless, even that truth about the famous Sayuri being hidden, copied, even changed so much. Did you see the picture of the original?”

“Of course, it was with your article,” Lala said. She then shook her head. “That was terrible of him, taking the baby out of the painting when the mother was the one who painted it.”

“I know the son from that,” Chou said. “It’s awful to him, but he’ll be able to keep that painting and others his mother did, along with his own.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Lala said.

“If I could’ve published this story before the confession, it would’ve been a bigger deal,” Ohya said, frowning briefly. “Then again, there’d be a lot more doubt and outcry against me for that. Oh yeah, Chou, I have to thank you too for the interview with those two girls. I’ll be working on that article next.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Chou said.

“I won’t disappoint you or the girls,” she said. “Well, maybe. Sorry, but something came up with the interview. Those girls were all fired up about getting the truth out there despite the school advising you students to keep quiet. I admire that, but there’s one knot with it all.”

“And what’s that?”

Ohya looked over at her, serious now. “The principal. That guy and a few others on the school staff knew that the coach was abusive, but the principal let him get away with things while punishing victims that spoke out. I hate assholes like that, so I really wanted to report that for them. However, Kobayakawa is under protection.”

“What, really?” Lala asked, surprised at hearing that.

Ohya nodded. “There’s a silence order about reporting negatively about certain people and organizations. Annoys me every time it comes up, but I could get fired and sued for breaking it. And for some inexplicable reason, Kobayakawa is one of those on the list. So I can write about everything else about the Kamoshida case, but him, well… there is something I can still do about it, but it’d be a headache.”

“We can’t let the assholes win,” Chou said, hitting the counter.

That made her laugh. “I like how you think! So here’s the plan: our group publishes a variety of media: newspapers, magazines, and tabloids. The tabloids are a bit of a catch-all for stuff we don’t want to publish elsewhere, like gossip or superstitious dredge that fills quotas. They have lower standards, including the ability to ignore silence orders as long as you’re using a pen name.”

“But a lot of people don’t take tabloids seriously,” Lala said.

“Not as many as those who do,” Ohya said. “The important matter is that tabloids start a lot of gossip. If I publish an article about how the principal is keeping students silent and protected Kamoshida while he was there, the talk will spread like wildfire. That should incite my boss to allow me to ignore silence orders and publish a serious article on it. So that news won’t get out there right away, but it’ll get out.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Chou said.

“Mmhmm, just some more work to get it done,” Ohya said. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t let the assholes win. You got any info on Kobayakawa and Kamoshida?”

“A little, mostly observations,” she said. “I saw them talking together one time and the principal said that Kamoshida was the star of the school and his mere presence boosted the school’s reputation. And after Kamoshida was arrested, a lot of the principal’s statements have been about preserving the reputation of the school.”

“Reputation is a lazy excuse that everyone uses,” Ohya said, taking another drink.

“There’s also the matter of the school protest,” Chou said, certain this would get Ohya’s interest.

“Oh, there was a protest at your school?” Lala asked, interested as well.

She nodded. “We found a loophole in the school rules in that there was nothing restricting us students from cross-dressing with the school uniforms.”

Ohya burst out laughing at that. “Really? Oh my god, that’s hilarious!”

“So we girls all showed up one day wearing pants to protest how the students weren’t protected from a sexual predator like Kamoshida,” Chou went on. “The boys came in wearing white armbands since they weren’t interested in wearing skirts.”

“That’s a pity,” Ohya said.

Chou nodded, feeling like Ohya would like that. “And all the female staff members showed up in pants too to join in, like the teachers and the office staff. They were all ignorant about what was going on, having been told that nothing was wrong even as students kept showing up with bad injuries. However, not all of the male staff members were wearing white armbands to show that they supported us students. Those who weren’t wearing them included the principal, a few male teachers, and the student counselor from what I remember. They all whined about ruining the school’s reputation and must have kept news of the protest hushed too.”

“I remember the girls mentioning a protest, but not getting the whole story from them,” Ohya said. “So it’s a cabal of the male staff that knew and kept things hushed up? That kind of info is stuff gossipers love to know. Well I can’t get this out in the next tabloid release; it’d show too close to the main article. But I can hint at stuff in the main article and get the tabloid one out in the June fifteenth issue. So if your friends notice I’m not reporting the whole story, just tell them to be patient and more juicy stuff will come out later.”

“Got it.”

Once she finished her tea, Chou excused herself and left the bar. She was going to head straight home; there was enough time to work on a school report. However, she spotted someone familiar on the way to the train station: Yuuki was at one of the corners, watching the people around him. There was something odd to him. Third Eye showed that his presence was weak. Was it always like that? Or was it a bad sign?

Before she got his attention, she got a few texts on her phone from Ryuji. ‘Hey wanna go to the movies tomorrow? The Cake Knight Rises is out! I was gonna go with some track guys, but they canceled on me and it’d be lame to go alone.’

Maybe… ‘Sure. And hey, wanna invite Yuuki too?’

Ryuji: Oh yeah, we should do that!

Ryuji: I’ve been trying to be friendly with him lately, because it seems like he gets ignored.

Chou: I know; I’ll ask him.

Putting her phone back in her bag, she went over to him. “Hey Yuuki.”

He jumped a little on hearing her, “Oh! Uh… ow!” He rubbed his head as he backed up into the building too quickly.

“Don’t be hurting yourself,” she said, smiling to convey that it was a joke. “Sorry, did I scare you?”

“Uh, a little,” he said, then stepped forward and shook his head. “I’m okay, I just wasn’t expecting to run into anybody who’d recognize me here.” Then he looked at her in concern. “Oh… hey, what are you doing here? I don’t get noticed wherever I go, so I’m usually okay. But there can be creeps around who’ll cause girls like you problems.”

Putting her hand on her chest, she said, “That’s why I dress like a boy around here. There’s somebody I’m helping out around here. Nothing crazy; she’s a reporter who does youth-oriented articles and somehow I became one of her informants.”

“Ah, well keep safe around here,” Yuuki said. “Though, uh, I hadn’t really noticed that you were trying to look like a boy. I mean, I see it now; you pull it off really well. I mean like,” he got too bashful and clammed up.

Pretending to be oblivious, Chou nodded. “I got warned that some creeps might hit on high school girls around here, but a boy’s probably safer. Anyhow, Ryuji invited me to see a movie tomorrow, The Cake Knight Rises. Want to come with us?”

Surprised, he asked, “Huh, really? Um, is that okay? I, I mean, he might have been asking you on a date…”

“Nah, it’s not like that,” she said. “We’re rivals, you see, competing over stuff. Besides, he’d like to invite you along too if you’re interested; it’d be fun. So?”

“Sure, that’ll be fine,” Yuuki said, giving a small smile. “We’ve got a volleyball match in the evening, but my morning is free.”

“Great, I’ll let him know,” Chou said. “You okay? You seem pale.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to worry,” he said, trying to seem tough. “But, uh… I probably should be getting back home.”

“I’m going home too, so let’s get to the trains,” she said.

“Yeah, we should go,” he said.

Yuuki seemed dazed by the time they got to Shibuya, so Chou walked with him back to his apartment to make sure he got home safely.


	35. The Cake Knight Versus The Bone Battalion

5/29

The concept of the Cake Knight made it seem like a surreal comedy: it was about a cake baker that became a creative hero to fight criminals who also specialized in various desserts. But the movie took its story seriously, letting it be funny, surreal, and touching all at once. Maybe not one of the great movies, but certainly entertaining.

“You know, I came here for crazy action and cake humor,” Ryuji said as they walked out of the theater. “I was not expecting to get teary-eyed over his dedication to helping his friend, but man, that was good.”

“Yeah, that was better than I thought it’d be,” Yuuki said, rubbing his head. His light still seemed weak. “Uh, sorry, I should get something to eat.”

Making a guess, Chou asked, “To help with taking medicine?”

“Uh, yeah, how’d you know?” he asked, surprised.

“I guessed,” she admitted. “Did you forget yesterday?”

“Um…” he looked down. “H-hey, you psychic or something?”

“Maybe,” she said. “But don’t be forgetting again; you seemed really off yesterday.”

“Oh, sorry, I hope I wasn’t too much trouble,” he said, blushing at that. “It’s just, it’s been over a month now? I thought I’d be okay.”

Ryuji shook his head. “Nah, man, you can’t be taking this lightly. A head injury can take months to recover from and yours was pretty bad. So don’t be skipping your medicine.”

“Y-yeah, sorry for being a bother,” Yuuki said meekly.

“It’s not bother, we’re your friends,” Chou said. “Hey Ryuji, got your badge? We could go to Big Bang Burger.”

“I think I do,” he said, digging in his pocket for a wallet.

“Big Bang sounds good, but what’s the badge for?” Yuuki asked.

“Ah-ha, got it!” Ryuji said triumphantly, pulling the crew member badge out. “This is for our challenge! Ready for the next round?”

“You bet,” Chou said.

“I’ll skip out on the challenge, thanks,” Yuuki said, although he eased up some. “But I have been curious just how big those burgers are.”

“They’re massive, just you wait,” Ryuji said.

At Big Bang Burger, Yuuki got the normal Earth Burger with fries and a drink, while they both showed their badges to get the next part of the challenge. Yuuki’s phone beeped while they were waiting, which he didn’t even check. “It’s my reminder for this,” he explained, getting out a pill box.

“You going to be okay with helping your team out this afternoon?” Ryuji asked. “I can help you out with making calls, though I don’t know as much about volleyball as you.”

“I should be okay,” he said, then swallowed a couple of his pills. After a moment, he shrugged. “But, I guess it couldn’t hurt either. It’s a high stakes game, though, being the semi-finals. You gonna be okay if you’re making calls?”

He shrugged back. “Won’t know until I try. I know the rules and moves of the game, and I know to keep an eye on the players and swap out somebody who’s getting tired or hurt.” He playfully punched his arm. “And I know to keep an eye on you now.”

“I mean to do my best for the team,” Yuuki said, determined in that. “But I’m not a real coach, and I guess I’m still not in top form. I felt like I was getting better, though.”

“Nah, a head injury can change symptoms while you’re healing,” Ryuji said. “And it’s really something an athlete of any sort needs to be mindful of, cause it can lead to permanent problems.”

Yuuki gave him a puzzled look. “But you wouldn’t need to worry as much because you’re in track?”

“Things still happen, like in jumps and hurdles,” he explained. “And I’ve seen what a concussion can do to somebody, so I studied up on them a bit.”

Chou smirked across the table. “And it’s the kind of thing you’d need to know as a personal trainer.”

“Hey, that is sounding pretty good as I look into it,” Ryuji said with a smile. Then he rolled his eyes. “But then it turns out I do need math and biology studies for it, so I need to get better there.”

“But then you’d get to help others be at their best, so that’s worth it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I might pursue that kind of career,” he said.

“I think you’d be good at it,” Yuuki said, smiling at him.

One of the workers then came by with their burgers. It wasn’t quite double the size of the Comet Burger, but this one did have an extra bun in the middle. “Okay, our fine crewmates, here’s your next challenge,” she said in a voice that was trying to be chipper but was low on energy. “This here is the Gravity Burger, a burger, ah, oh yeah, one that’s big enough to have it’s own gravitational field.”

“Wow, that’s massive,” Yuuki said, his eyes wide at the piles of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, sauce, and meat between the three buns.

“Everything has a gravitational field,” Chou said.

“Uh, yeah,” she said, then shrugged. “It’s a spiel, though, with its own gravity to my paycheck. So, dive on in, but don’t get sucked into its gravity well, or something. You have forty-five minutes for this challenge. Ready to begin?”

“Sure,” Chou said.

“Yeah, I’m on this!” Ryuji said.

The worker put a timer on the set time. “Okay then, and… begin!”

It was way more than she usually ate for a meal, but then the Comet Burger had been the same way. There was a strategy to this: pace your chewing, don’t let your mouth get too dry, don’t get discouraged by the size. Her Gravity Burger slowly diminished until she had a few minutes to finish up the little scraps that had fallen out. Ryuji was struggling to finish the last of his, focused on getting it done.

“Wow, you actually ate that whole thing,” Yuuki said, impressed.

“Yeah, that was seriously amazing,” Morgana said, out of the bag for now.

“That could be the last I need to eat today,” she said, taking out a wet napkin to clean up with.

A few minutes later, the timer went off and Ryuji had to give up. “Aw man, not even the extended time was enough,” he said, hanging his head. “And I’m completely stuffed! How did you finish that?”

“You have much to learn about eating,” Chou said, mimicking a line that had been in the movie.

“It seems I do,” he said.

The worker came back by, surprised briefly that it had been her instead of him that won. She handed over a silver first mate badge and took her name for the monthly board. As Yuuki was more alert, he drilled Ryuji on what he’d need to know to help with coaching the volleyball teams. Chou hung around and listened, partly curious and partly too full to do much else. And by sticking around with them, she got into the games without waiting around too much.

Once the games were over, she went to Shibuya and found Yoshida getting ready for his speech. “Hey, sorry it’s been a while,” she said. “I’ve been busy.”

“Not a problem,” he said with a smile. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with your duties as a student. But you’ve come at a good time today. What you’ll be doing is simple, but the visible support will garner more attention.”

All she was doing was holding up a sign that said, ‘Make things fair for all’. Tonight, Yoshida talked about how the people of Japan needed to unite. Young people were being pushed and exploited enough that they distrusted anyone older; the elderly also felt insecure and distrustful of anyone younger. Meanwhile, the middle-aged were focused on themselves, not caring for the young or the old, nor the past or future. Yoshida wanted to break the habits of taking advantage of others, something that had built up in their culture over generations. He intended to do this through political means.

But not many were listening. Some stopped but seemed skeptical, acting much like he was saying. A college-aged man didn’t think Yoshida would really help him, while an old woman complained that young people were weak-willed and complained about everything. There was even an argument to the side that disrupted his speech, which united a few people against Yoshida when he tried to mediate. On top of all that, some heckler called him No-Good Tora, claiming nobody was going to listen to a loser. That last bit broke Yoshida’s stride with his speech, but he wrapped it up all the same.

“That was another rough night,” Yoshida said once it was just them by the station entrance. He seemed dispirited.

Chou didn’t have a Sun Persona to match him; she was pretty sure she hadn’t seen any, not even in Mementos. So she’d have to rely on gut feelings here. “It happens, although that one guy was rude,” she said.

“You’re talking about that heckler after the arguing pedestrians?” he asked, then sighed. “I have a bad habit of freezing up whenever someone uses that nickname, No-Good Tora. One should remain calm and confidant when speaking, so that is something I need to overcome. Do you know about my history in politics?”

She shook her head. “No, wasn’t interested until recently.”

Fortunately, he was willing to talk. “It happened around twenty years ago; have you heard of the Kuramoto Children? Basically, a senior member of the Diet, Councilman Kuromoto, decided to fund the campaigns of a group of young people looking to make a break in the political world, as a means of getting some fresh perspective into our leadership. I was a part of that group, supported by funds and coaching from old man Kuramoto.

“However, I was very inexperienced at the time, both in politics and as a person. I made a series of blunders that became referred to as No-Good Tora’s three strikes. First, I was caught using some personal time for a vacation, missing an important meeting in the process. Second, I was accused of embezzling party funds for my own use. And finally, I lost my cool and called a citizen an idiot at a press conference. That was the third strike and I was out of politics.

“Do you have any second thoughts on supporting me knowing that?” He had a very serious look on his face then.

However, Chou picked up on something unsaid through Third Eye; the embezzlement accusation was much like her assault accusation. It was something he knew was untrue. “Nah, I believe in second chances,” she said.

“Really?” he asked, surprised at the acceptance.

She nodded. “Actually, I’m on probation for an accusation of assault, so I’m hoping second chances apply to anyone who’s giving an honest effort at being better.”

From the concern on his face, Yoshida picked up on the meaning of ‘accusation’ by normal means. He put his hand to his chin. “Really? I see, I see… that’s a tough position to be in. Our justice system is unfortunately draconic, even towards minors like yourself. But if you can get through this probation without incident, the charges should be cleared from your record. It will be an obstacle to joining politics, as people will find out. With that against you, why are you interested in becoming a politician?”

That wasn’t her intention with this Confidant. But she felt like some honesty would work even if it wasn’t for the aim he thought she was after. “I want to change the world,” she said with her own confidence.

It did impress him. “That’s quite an ambitious goal, if a little vague. But I understand, and commend you for having such drive. Whether in politics or just plain life and speaking, it is important to have a central philosophy behind what you do and know what that philosophy is. For me, I have a simple one.” He clenched a fist and confidently said, “Never give up until your voice is heard! This is for whether I’m speaking for things that affect me or things that would affect my constituents. So even a tough day like this is fine as long as I keep my conviction.”

Nodding, Chou said, “Right, you have to believe in your own truth. So you’re okay with working with a kid on probation? I’ve met with a lot of resistance.”

“I’m fine, I admire your spirit,” Yoshida said, smiling for her. “It seems we both have things to improve on while facing resistance. But if we stick together, it will inspire us to not give up.”

“Right,” Chou said, smiling back.

Though she wasn’t going to tell him about being one of the Phantom Thieves, if she could help it.

* * *

5/30

Something odd happened during school: their usual lunch group didn’t meet up. Some other girls had invited Ann and Shiho to eat with them in the cafeteria. As a result, Chou spent lunchtime eating her food at her desk while doing some homework for the week ahead. It was good that other people were opening up to Ann despite the bad reputation she had solely as being a perceived foreigner. Although, Chou’s situation hadn’t improved much. People still weren’t talking to her, but their fears were still obvious. She had heard some gossip about her beating the Big Bang Burger Challenge, which was curious to them but not enough to change their attitude.

Hopefully this time alone during lunch was an exception rather than a starting pattern.

Towards the end of lunch period, she left the classroom to pick up a soda, feeling like she could use the caffeine boost. And maybe an extra couple for tonight; it was about time to find their next target as the Phantom Thieves. She went down to the courtyard since she knew the vending machines there had some of the Dr. Salt Neo she liked. As expected for lunch period, there were some people there: Ryuji and Yuuki. They were in some conversation, although once Ryuji spotted her, he quickly folded up a hot pink flier.

She pretended not to notice. “Hey guys,” she said. “Sorry about not coming down here earlier; Ann and Shiho went to chat with some other girls.”

“Eh, no problem, I found Yuuki,” Ryuji said, tucking the paper in his pocket. “So, what’re you doing?”

“Just picking up a soda,” she said, opting to buy just one and pick up the others later. “What about you two? You seemed really into something a moment ago.”

“It’s nothing,” both of them said at once. Yuuki even paled at it. Whatever they’d been talking about, it wasn’t something they wanted a girl finding out about.

“Guy talk?” she asked. “All right, I won’t pry anymore.”

“Y-yeah, that’s it,” Yuuki said, relieved that she wasn’t going to press the issue. “Hey, you got any plans this afternoon?

Hopefully meeting up with Makoto finally. But before that, “I have gardening committee duties, sorry.”

“Oh, there’s a gardening committee?” he asked, puzzled.

Chou nodded and gestured to a flowerbed in sight. “Of course, where do you think the lovely flowers all over school come from? I’m learning from a talented senior; she has quite the green thumb.”

“Is that what you were doing the other day?” Ryuji asked. When she nodded, he scratched his head. “Ah, so that’s why you were there. But hey, maybe that’ll help your reputation around school if you’re doing work like that.”

“One can hope,” she said, taking her soda to head back to class. “See you guys later.”

After class, Chou headed over to start her gardening. Haru apologized profusely for having to leave; she seemed like she’d rather stay even though it wasn’t her day. Chou told her it was fine and agreed to check over the rooftop vegetables carefully. From the looks of them, they would be ready for harvesting tomorrow as expected. It took an hour to get through the work, but hopefully Makoto had student council duties keeping her behind too.

She left the rooftop for last so she could naturally pass by the student council room to see if Makoto was there. And she was; she didn’t notice Chou right away since she seemed preoccupied looking over a notebook. Preoccupied and stressed out, biting her lip in worry. It should be a good day to try helping her relax.

“Hey, Makoto, something wrong?” Chou asked.

“Huh?!” She gripped her notebook to her chest and stepped back. On seeing who she was, she seemed relieved. “Oh! I’m sorry, Chou, I didn’t mean to ignore you. Um, what are you doing?”

“Finishing up gardening committee duties,” she said, holding up her watering can and gardening shears. “I haven’t cleaned up yet, sorry. And I didn’t mean to scare you. What’re you doing?”

“Just reviewing some information,” she said, seeming worried. “Uh, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s just a pain, but I should be doing this.”

“Well you seem stuck,” Chou said. “Hey, you wanna go play some Gun About as a break? I’ve got my homework done and just need to put things away.”

After a sigh, she said, “I suppose I won’t make any progress just banging my head against this wall. All right, I need to clean some things up in the student council. I’ll meet you up by the entrance in a few minutes.”

The arcade had a number of players around the fighting game booths, but there was conveniently a pair of Gun About machines open by each other. Their characters were even with each other in experience. “You seem to have a practical build going, with some good power,” Chou said.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been playing a little bit,” Makoto said, seeming embarrassed. “I looked up some information online and this stat spread seemed both self-sufficient and reliable. Um, if I’m not going to be playing regularly, I just want something easy to work with. I hope that’s not strange.”

Chou shook her head. “Nah, it’s a normal thing to not waste too much money with experimentation.”

“That is a consideration at this arcade,” she said, feeling better about it. “Your build seems odd, though. I don’t recall it from the list of recommendations. They even said that if you get the Climb skill as part of your start kit, you should ditch it for something else.”

“I went for stealth because I like the idea,” Chou explained. “And Climb can do some fun stuff, I’ve found. Here, let’s go into the Catacombs map and I’ll show you.”

“All right, but isn’t your defense low for that area?” Makoto asked, shooting the option on her machine.

Chou did the same to agree. “I’ve gone through this level before; my build is called glass cannon in some games because of sacrificing defense for offense. You hope that you can kill your enemies before they kill you. Since you’re more bulky, it’ll help if you go ahead of me.”

“All right, I can do that,” she said.

The Catacombs level was the easiest version of the set it belonged to, although the set itself was considered some of the harder ones in the game. It was an indoors area full of tall thin passages and blind corners; one of the most valuable things to locate early was the enemy locator to put them on the mini-map. However, a number of enemies were the ceiling clingers that were responsible for many a drop scare and sudden death. The walls were easy climb surfaces for them. Even the ceiling had grip textures. Chou was able to get right up to the ceiling to spot a couple of clingers ahead of their starting location.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Makoto asked.

“The ceiling,” she said, shooting the clingers off before they could drop-scare. “They’re vulnerable when I knock them off, so get them before they recover.”

“Got it,” she said, focusing on the game to kill the clingers.

Before long, they got a team tactic figured out. With her stealth build, Chou focused on scouting out enemies and trying to find the locator. Makoto made use of her sturdier armor to clear halls and destroy obstacles. It made the Catacombs much better to clear than usual. They even uncovered a hidden treasure room that got them both a lot of gold for upgrades.

It seemed like they had the level clear when the screens blared red. “Whoa, there’s a boss here?” Makoto asked, surprised. “How’d we summon it?”

“Maybe finding the treasure room?” Chou suggested. “It seems to be in the central room. Let’s give it a shot.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she agreed.

The boss turned out to be a skeleton in a soldier’s uniform and helmet, wielding a large black machine gun. Chou got up to a higher platform in time to miss his first spray of bullets sweeping across the room. While there seemed to be no cover on the floor, there was some up on a ring of platforms. She kicked down a ladder to let Makoto get up with her, shooting at some lesser skeletons that tried to keep Makoto down.

“They should go down to incendiary rounds, but I’m running low on those,” Makoto said.

“I’ll look around for some more,” Chou said, wall-jumping over to another platform to search around.

Once Makoto had a comfortable amount of useful ammo, Chou worked with her to knock the machine gun skeleton down so Makoto could do even more damage with her incendiary rounds. Once it was down, two machine gun skeletons dropped in. A third round of three machine gunners came after them, accompanied by lesser skeletons that tried to get up on the platforms too. They defeated that round too, only to get surprised by a giant skeleton dropping in, duel-wielding a machine gun and a flamethrower. Both weapons could shoot across the whole room in unpredictable spreads.

“He’s got us pinned down,” Makoto said, really into the game now. “Chou, you think you can circle around him to knock him down? It seems like we can’t do much damage while he’s standing and facing us.”

“Wish me luck, this’ll be dangerous,” Chou said. Bosses generally had infinite ammo, but the machine guns did need the clips changed. Once the boss had to do that, she dashed out of cover to hop from platform to platform to get around the room. Makoto fired some louder ammo, perhaps trying to keep the boss’s attention on her location.

Once Chou got around behind the boss, she made sure she had a silencer on before firing at the bottom of the skeleton’s spine; that had been the weak point of the previous machine gunner skeletons. It worked, stopping the constant flamethrower assault. They couldn’t finish him off that time, nor the second time she knocked him down. And after that, the boss charged his flamethrower to send a fiery rain of bullets over the whole room.

“What, he can do that?” Makoto asked in shock.

“No wonder this cover protects from above too,” Chou said. “He doesn’t seem to be hitting me with that fire storm.”

“Nor me,” Makoto said. “All right, I’m sure we can do this! Let’s get him.”

“Got it,” Chou said, knocking the skeleton down again. That allowed Makoto to defeat it, finishing the map with bonuses for them both.

“Yes, we did it!” Makoto said, giving an excited hop at their victory.

“That was a tough boss,” Chou said. “We weren’t even expecting it.”

“But we got it done, that’s important,” she said. Then a stat screen popped up, showing the win percentage of players who had attempted the boss, the Catacombs MG Battalion E. “Wow, that’s less than half of successful attempts.”

“And seems like nobody’s beat Battalion S,” Chou said. “Hey, wanna try for beating them?”

“Challenging a boss that nobody else has beat?” Makoto asked, both intrigued and intimidated. “We’re relatively new players, though. We might’ve barely had the stats to beat Battalion E.”

“It helps to have a goal, even if we’re not super regular players,” Chou said. “It’s not like we’re trying to be the first to beat Battalion S, but it’d be a fun challenge.”

“Hmm, I suppose a goal would help even for an arcade game,” she said, thinking it over. “And we made a pretty good team. I might’ve gotten killed at the first battalion wave if I’d found them on my own.” She smiled. “So yeah, let’s give this a shot. I feel like I shouldn’t be doing this, but it seems fun.”

“It’s a hobby, school comes first,” Chou said.

She nodded. “You’re right, then it should be fine. Then, want to work on defeating Battalion E faster? Once we’re quick at clearing the level and boss, we can move on to Battalion D in Dusty Catacombs.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” she said, getting to her leveling screen. She had enough experience to max out Climb, and, “Oo, I’m getting close to being able to buy the good stealth gear.”

“Nice,” Makoto said. “I’ve still got a ways to save for the gear I’d like to have, mostly because I improved my gun first to take more types of ammo. Want to take another round again today?”

“Sure thing.” They chose Catacombs again to try Battalion E again. Max Climb allowed Chou to get up to the ceiling near instantaneously when she jumped, and climb smooth surfaces she hadn’t been able to get a grip on before. It allowed her a great deal more mobility around the Catacombs.

After that round, they left to get some food at the diner and figure out their plan for mastering the Catacombs levels. “Hey, thanks for convincing me to do this,” Makoto said after a while. “I feel a lot better having a break from constant school business. And, I have something else to look forward to.” She smiled bashfully. “Just, uh, I can’t let my sister find out.”

“I’ll keep your secret,” Chou said, making her giggle. “Hey, is your sister named Sae? With dark gray hair?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes, how did you know?”

“I live above a cafe called Leblanc, where I met her as a customer,” she explained.

Makoto nodded at that. “Ah, that makes sense. Yes, she’s told me about Leblanc, says it’s her favorite cafe. It makes sense that you’d meet her there, but it’s an interesting coincidence all the same.”

“I can believe you on her being strict,” she said. “I only spoke with her a little bit, but it seems like she does not like to lose.”

“Right,” Makoto said, although that worried her. “She’s always been competitive; she’s a prosecutor, so she needs to be competitive, especially as a woman in the field. But, sometimes I worry about her being too focused on winning. She’s always thinking about work and doesn’t even come home some nights. Like tonight, I’d be surprised if she was home now.”

“She seems like that kind of person,” Chou agreed.

“Hmm, and you’ve only met her once,” Makoto said, leaning back in the seat. “You know, she went to Shujin Academy, an honors student like me. So I end up getting compared to her a lot, even by staff who weren’t there when she was. Even the principal is like that. He’s… well, he’s a real pain in that and more.”

“Is he causing you trouble?” she asked, making it clear that she would listen.

That made Makoto relax. “To be frank, yes. Um, I shouldn’t complain about him, as the student council president. But that means I work with him often and he’s quite unreasonable. Like after Kamoshida was arrested, Kobayakawa asked me to investigate the student body to figure out who the Phantom Thieves are, if they’re students at our school.”

Having a hint from Apsaras, she asked, “Aren’t the police looking into that?”

She nodded. “Yes, my sister too. He first suggested that the students might speak more freely around a peer. However, I’ve found little good evidence at the school itself. For one thing, there have been targets other than Kamoshida which have no connection to the school.”

“Really?” Chou said, leaning forward. So Makoto was even more valuable as an ally because that was a connection to Sae, a prosecutor interested in the Phantom Thieves.

Makoto was glad to be taken seriously for her part. “Really. I looked into their fansite and discovered that they don’t always make a dramatic calling out. There are smaller targets that they simply send a text to before they change the target’s heart. According to posts on the site, there’s been at least three like that, with no connection to Shujin. And their second big target is the same: Madarame has no connection to Shujin. This makes it less likely that the Phantom Thieves are students from Shujin.”

“Did you find any suspicious students?” she asked, since she seemed invested in talking about it now.

Smiling a bit, she said, “Actually, you were one of the most suspicious at first, but our talk quickly put that theory to rest. And you know Sakamoto-san? He was also a suspect because of his fight with Kamoshida last year. However, he was one of those who dreamed of fighting with the Phantom Thieves. A few others were able to vouch for him not being one of the actual Thieves and we can’t call the dreamers the criminals.”

“So they can’t be charged?” Chou asked. “That’s good; a lot of my friends are those who had those dreams.”

“It would be an incredibly tough sell in court,” Makoto said. “Their memories of the dream are unreliable as evidence, since they have to make up stories to fill in the gaps. The stories don’t match between participants; I have records of that. However, the actual Phantom Thieves must be triggering these shared dreams somehow. When that method is determined and proved, there’s a good chance that they could be charged in court of some kind of blackmail and harassment.”

“It makes for an interesting case,” she said.

Makoto nodded. “Doesn’t it? I kind of want to talk with my sister more about it, but I know she wouldn’t tell me everything in case she builds a case against them in the future.” Then she sighed. “But I don’t appreciate Principal Kobayakawa making me investigate the students. Sis advised me to keep out of it. The principal won’t let it go, though. He didn’t even listen to me today when he called me in on my progress.”

“That sucks,” Chou said. “Why’s he so interested?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “He says it’s for the safety of the school, but also goes back to the old refrain of preserving the school’s reputation. I told him that it’s highly unlikely that the Thieves are students, but something has him completely convinced that they are.”

“Did you argue with him?”

It made her disappointed, but Apsaras assured her that it was fine. “No. I wanted to, but when he gets fired up, it’s hard to get a word in otherwise. And he kept piling up stuff against me: about how my sister would’ve gotten something done by now, how it was my responsibility to keep the student body civilized, and how he’s going to write a stunning letter of recommendation for me once I get him the information. But there’s no more information to find! Unless I’ve missed something, which is possible, but then I’m not sure how to find that…”

“He sounds rotten to me,” Chou said. “I mean, your sister is a prosecutor, right? So she has tons of training in investigations, along with far more resources than you do.”

“That’s right,” Makoto said, nodding slowly. “But there’s also this high school detective that’s gaining notoriety lately. Have you heard of him? Goro Akechi, called the next Detective Prince. Kobayakawa mentioned him too.”

“Well not everybody can be a genius,” Chou said. “It’s unrealistic for him to expect you to find information that the police can’t just because some other high schooler is a famous detective. Is this Akechi guy even at our school?”

She shook her head. “No. And you’re right, I’ve been working hard to be where I am as an honors student, but I’m not a perfect genius.

“Right. And your responsibility as the council president is to be the student’s representative to the school board, isn’t it? Discipline might be part of it, but interrogating students to see if they’re criminals? It doesn’t sound right.”

“That has been something that’s made me uncomfortable,” Makoto agreed. “And you’re right again, I am a representative of the student body. I shouldn’t be working against my fellow students unless there’s a clear danger from a student.”

“And then about the letter of recommendation, does it have to be from the principal?” Chou shrugged. “It might not be as effective, but if you picked a teacher that was related to the field you want to study, wouldn’t their letter work just as well?”

She chuckled at that, a good sign. “Well my sister might argue that; a principal’s letter of recommendation is a top-notch key into a good school, or so she’d say. But I would rather get a letter from someone else, really.” Then she sighed and shook her head. “Because I overheard something awful from him before our meeting.”

“What was that?” she asked.

After a glance around, Makoto leaned on the table. “He was talking with Mr. Yamauchi. You know about the current situation with the track team, right?”

She nodded. “Ryuji is one of my friends.”

“Then that’s why you yelled at them,” she said, putting a hand to her chin. “You did encourage me with that too, to step in and do something. Well today, Yamauchi was complaining about being unable to control the track team members. Kobayakawa complained that Kamoshida would have been able to keep them in line, and that discipline throughout the whole school has been degrading due to his arrest. They talked about finding any excuse to break up the track team again because they were too much trouble. But what really was insane was how the principal said that he hoped that the volleyball team lost Nationals so that they learned what happens when kids try to do things without an adult’s guidance. They’re already planning on dissolving the team after they’re out of Nationals no matter what the students may say, all because Kamoshida is no longer on staff.”

“That’s fucking awful,” Chou said.

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but I agree,” Makoto said, the anger clear in her eyes. “This is a clear betrayal of the students; he doesn’t care at all about the victims! Just because his darling coach is gone, he is willing to eliminate two teams that students are passionate about.” She sighed. “But I was a coward. He took control of our meeting and I couldn’t bring up what I’d heard. I’m not even sure how to bring this all to light, so I’m something of a traitor too.”

She wanted someone on her side, but also wanted something done. After a moment, Chou said, “Don’t be so hard on yourself; nobody’s perfect.”

“But I have a responsibility to the students,” Makoto said, concerned enough about all this that she might get upset if the wrong thing was said.

Chou winked at her. “So don’t forget it. Let’s make use of the power of gossip.”

“Gossip?” She looked across the table blankly. “I don’t pay gossip much heed.”

“But most students do. You know how fast news of my probation spread after Kamoshida got it leaked onto the student message board? Two days, and just about the whole student body thought they knew the truth of me when I arrived. The post itself was anonymous. So what we do now is make another anonymous post containing the information you overheard. It’ll be seen and talked about, and before Kobayakawa knows what’s coming, the vast majority of students will be against him because of his bad opinions.”

“That’s brilliant,” Makoto said, gripping the table and grinning. “But, how do we get an anonymous post that can’t be traced to us? Both of us could get in big trouble over this even if the students end up supporting us.”

“Well I don’t want to betray someone’s trust, but I know who helped Kamoshida with that post,” Chou said. “I don’t blame them, and if they can’t help, I know yet someone else who could. I can arrange this all tomorrow.”

“Wow, you’ve already made some good connections,” she said in admiration. “This is great, thank you Chou. Man, I was worried about so much, but you’ve cleared up a lot for me. I should’ve thought of this all on my own, or at least not let Kobayakawa bully me after hearing all that awful nonsense. I need to figure out what’s important to me.”

“Everyone needs to do that,” Chou said. “It’s fine. You can make yourself better.”

She nodded. “Right. I’ll give this some thought. Once the gossip gets heated up, I want to confront Kobayakawa about things. That scares me, honestly; I’ve been striving to be a model honors student all this time. But this situation needs to be addressed.”

Makoto left not long after to consider what she could do, but Chou stuck around in Shibuya. “Ready for our investigation, Ace?” she asked quietly.

“Ready to roll, Joker!” Morgana said from her bag.

Once they found an out of the way place on Central Street, Chou sent them off into the Palace of their next possible target: Junya Kaneshiro.


	36. Two of Pentacles

5/30

They had a good lead on their next target. Itachi had asked them to take care of Junya Kaneshiro as well. In Shido’s guest book, Kaneshiro was listed as a mafia boss with control over Shibuya. It was ridiculous that a member of the National Diet was allowing a crime lord to have control over a part of Tokyo. Due to that, the police were doing nothing about Kaneshiro. Doing something against Kaneshiro as the Phantom Thieves would make their notoriety grow, along with sending a message of warning to Shido himself.

Once they transferred over to the Metaverse, one change was immediately apparent looking out of the alleyway: the pedestrians were transformed into walking ATMs. They had no arms or faces, with legs covered in gray stockings. “What the heck are those things?” Ace asked, staring at the people.

“They’re ATMs,” Joker said. On getting a blank look, she added, “Automated Teller Machines. They’re something banks use to allow people to withdraw money without visiting a bank. I haven’t had to use one in Tokyo yet, although I should think of opening a bank account for the money we’re getting here.”

“I’ll leave judgment of that up to you,” Ace said, her whiskers twitching. “That’s weird though. And man, the distortion is heavy here! This person has a huge influence on the Metaverse.”

“He does control Shibuya.” After glancing around, Joker stepped out into Central Street. There were more of the ATM people walking around, along with a few collapsed on the ground. “Can you smell the Treasure?”

“Uh…” Ace closed her eyes and tried to smell. “It’s faint, far from here. Overhead?”

“Is the Palace itself higher up in a building?” She looked around her. The stores were accurately labeled just as they were in the real world. In fact, the main difference from reality were posters of a bald man with purple skin and a blue suit. The posters were on every store around.

Higher up, nothing stood out for a moment. Then a massive curve of lights appeared in the sky. Caught off guard by the strangeness, they watched as a massive UFO drifted over Central Street. Huge words were written across the bottom of it: ‘The Exalted Bank of Kaneshiro’.

“Holy smokes, he’s in a flying bank?” Ace asked. “Th-that’s where people store money, isn’t it?”

“And take out loans, and do other things with money,” Joker said, watching the bank drift by. “How are we getting to a flying bank?”

“I have no idea,” Ace said, then sighed. “Neither of us can fly.”

“I might be able to get a Persona that could fly us up there,” she suggested. “I don’t know which one would be strong enough, so that could take a while to get.”

“There should be some way to get up there now, though that would work,” she said, rubbing her chin. “Let’s ask these ATM people. They’re connected to banks too, right?”

“Right, they could have the information,” Joker said.

Unfortunately, the ATM people were of no help. The walking ATMs spoke random nonsense and didn’t recognize the flying bank overhead. The ATMs standing around or fallen were all badly damaged. Sparks came off some; others had screens bashed in and scorch marks all over. When spoken too, the ATMs begged for forgiveness and help. They asked for family members to be left alone, or pleaded that they had no more yen. When asked about the bank, they would scream or whimper before going insensible.

Ace tried searching around the station square while Joker was interviewing one of the broken ATMs. When she got back, Ace sighed and shook her head. “It’s cognitions of ATM people everywhere, and still no signs of how to get up there. Did you notice the money, though? It’s all being sucked up into that bank. Still doesn’t help us, but curious.”

“I’ve heard talk on the news about phishing and other scams being prevalent this year,” Joker said. “So he’s pulling money from all over Shibuya for his power. And it seems the Diet and the police may be protecting him, at least willfully ignoring what he’s doing.” She looked up as the flying bank was making another pass overhead. “He’s untouchable, leading to this.”

“He shouldn’t be untouchable to us!” Ace said. “But for now, he is. What now?”

She shrugged. “Seems like we aren’t getting anywhere until we can fly, or find some way to get in with their organization.”

“But a mafia is a group of criminals, right? That’s dicey whether they’re the good or bad sort.”

“I agree.” She shifted her mask. “They’re more commonly called yakuza; mafia’s a foreign term that sounds fancier, I guess. We should put him off and pick a target we can reach.”

Ace’s tail twitched. “I hate giving up on a target, especially one that a victim asked us to look into. But, yeah, we should while we consider how we get up there. Who knows? Taking care of another Palace could inform us of a Persona that could fly you up there. So let’s go so we can discuss who to check out next.”

“Right.” They headed back to the alleyway to come out of the Metaverse.

But as the normal world settled in, someone bumped straight into Chou. The woman who’d run into her yelped as they both tripped back. “Hu-huh, where did you come from?” she asked, startled badly.

“S-sorry,” Chou said, bracing herself on her hands and looking over. It was a woman dressed in a maid costume; the headband had kitty ears, while her hair was done in twirly pigtails. And her face was familiar…

“Whoa, this is trouble!” Morgana said, looking around the alleyway in case of other witnesses.

“You just appeared out of nowhere, where’d you come from?” she asked, shifting her skirt to get back on her feet. “I know it’s dark, but I thought there was nobody…”

An excuse came to mind, but so did who this was. “Ms. Kawakami?”

Kawakami’s eyes widened and her face paled. “Aa, n-no, no way, I’m Becky, meow!” She tried to act cute, realized she wasn’t convinced, then looked mortified. “Oh my god, I can’t believe this. This night has been horrible, what with that prank call to an empty apartment, and now running into a student. Ah, pl-please, you can’t tell anyone about this! Seriously!”

Chou got up and tried to wave her to be quiet. “Hey, not so loud. Take a deep breath; don’t want you hyperventilating.”

After a few deep breaths, Kawakami still looked embarrassed but was calmer. “God, I’m sorry,” she said in a quieter tone. “But I can’t let this be known. I could get fired as a teacher if this side-job got known. I knew I should’ve gotten a job further away, but I needed to get to work soon after school…”

“What are you doing for this job?” Chou asked. This was clearly bad for Kawakami, but it was a surreal situation that made her uncomfortable.

“It’s just a maid for hire service,” she said, still embarrassed. “Nothing sexual, though it is pretty much an escort service with cleaning service as a mask. But it still has a bad stigma to it and is bad for a teacher. I can’t really help it, though, um, it’s complicated, but please, believe me.”

Chou nodded. “I’ll believe you, but I think we need to talk about this somewhere less busy than here.”

“You’re right,” Kawakami said, bowing her head. “But I don’t think we can discuss it at school… um, hey, I have another client tonight, but let me give you a referral. We’ll have to do this through this job, unless your guardian would be a problem? Because that would be awkward too…” she had a business card out of a pocket, but hesitated on this.

This was really weird, even with all the Phantom Thief business she was involved in. But Ms. Kawakami might turn out to be another Confidant if these two conflicting jobs were what led her to be grouchy and stressed. Chou also wanted to help her as this looked really bad. “I don’t live in my guardian’s house, but I do live about the cafe he runs. So it’d have to be after closing time of eight, and after he’s gone home.”

“Then that should work,” she said, making some notes on the card. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but, here. For Victoria’s Maid Service, with an extension to my phone number associated with the job. Be sure to request Becky if you don’t get me. But don’t call on your own cell phone! Try to get a public phone so it doesn’t show up in any records; that’d be bad for you. Oh, and there’s a five thousand yen fee for an hour; sorry, I can’t waive that by any means.” She then handed over the card.

“I got it, and we’ll talk seriously when I can call you over,” Chou said, putting the card in her blazer pocket.

“Thank you, and we won’t mention anything about meeting tonight?” she asked, nervously fusing with her apron.

“Not a word,” she agreed.

“Thanks, and I hope this isn’t too much trouble,” Ms. Kawakami said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.” Giving a nervous laugh trying to be cute, she waved and hurried on towards Central Street and presumably the station.

“That was weird,” Morgana said, watching her go. “I don’t think anybody saw us talking.”

“We might be lucky in that she got so flustered about it,” Chou said, shifting her glasses. “But, I might have to explain to her why I appeared out of nowhere in an alleyway.”

“Yeah, that’s unlucky,” she said, looking back up at her. “We should have noticed her when we went in.”

“Maybe we came out in a different spot,” Chou said, glancing around. “Anyhow, we better move on. I have another Palace from the guest book that I located, in another neighborhood.”

“Right, let’s go!” She hopped back in Chou’s bag so they could get over to the station as well.

Ten minutes later, they were walking through Suidobashi. It wasn’t as bustling as Shibuya or Shinjuku, but there was still a lot of people walking around. Tapping her shoulder to get Morgana’s attention, she pointed out the building they were approaching. “This is the broadcast studio for the station that Sojiro is always tuned into. Tokyo Two.”

Morgana peeked out; her whiskers twitched against Chou’s neck. “Hmmm… there’s definitely a Palace here. More than one by my guess. So who’s the target?”

“Kenzo Hashimoto, the station’s lead producer,” she explained, bringing out her phone to show the Navigator info. “The guest book also mentions his wife Kyoko as a supporter; she works as Kenzo’s secretary. She also comes up as a positive in the Navigator.”

“Wait, she has a Palace here too?” Morgana asked.

“Well I didn’t triangulate her, just Kenzo,” Chou said, looking at her phone. The Navigator was trying to follow their conversation; it was asking for a full name. “Does Kyoko Hashimoto have a Palace here as well?”

The Navigator spent a few moments calculating. ‘Palace of Kyoko Hashimoto confirmed near current location. Warning: Palace overlaps with another confirmed Palace. Please scan again within the Metaverse to check on stability of either Palace.’

“They’re married,” Morgana mused aloud. “Which means… yeah, the divide between their cognitions may be weak in some locations.”

“Then we’re challenging both if we challenge either one?” Chou asked, looking over the television station.

“Could be, depending on the strength of their relationship,” she said, standing higher on Chou’s shoulder. “This could be a complicated heist as there’d be two Treasures involved. But if it’s a choice between figuring out how to fly, figuring out two Palaces that may be connected, or finding another…”

“There’s plenty of targets available in that book,” Chou said. “Let’s at least take a look inside these two Palaces, see how we might fare.”

“Right, that’s important.”

She picked Kenzo’s Palace first since that was the one she’d located first. The building turned into an exaggerated version of itself, with its floors shifted into a crooked tower. Under the dark sky, brilliant lights of many colors flashed across building in time to a thumping beat from within. A large neon sign with a sunny spiral design said, ‘Club Hashimoto- Come inside to hear about everything important!’ Cognitions of a crowd seemed to be coming and going through the doors in excitement. Some of them were even dancing.

“This is one of those clubs in Shinjuku you talked about?” Ace asked, looking uneasy.

“Looks like it,” Joker said.

“That music is so loud, leaking outside like that,” she said, twitching her whiskers. “The distortion isn’t as powerful as Kaneshiro’s; it’s like, this place wishes it could influence the world like that one, but it can’t yet. We should be able to get in this Palace. I just hope it’s not deafening inside.”

“We’ll have to endure it to check out the dance floor at least. Let’s look around for an alternate entrance.”

“Agreed.”

Around the back of the building, they found a back door guarded by a Shadow with a red aura. It looked like a security guard, although its jacket stated ‘Politeness Rules!’. But looking at it with Third Eye, the guard didn’t feel that strong. They ambushed it to discover that it was an archangel, much like the ones they’d found in Kamoshida’s castle tower. “Danger, excessive violence found!” the archangel called, waving his sword. “How rude! You will be taught properly!”

“Rudeness has nothing to do with this,” Joker said. They had attacked it and it was concerned about rudeness? Odd, but something to keep in mind about the Palace owner.

With better equipment, Personas, and more experience, the archangel wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had been before. Joker even intimidated it into becoming her Persona. And, it was an archangel. It was about her size, but maybe it could still help.

She summoned it to ask, “Hey, can you carry me while flying, like to the roof of this building?”

The archangel looked up there, then shook his head. “Sorry, I’m not that strong. You’d need a higher ranked angel for that distance.”

“That’s too bad,” Joker said, sending him away.

“Seems you need a Persona that’s both strong and can fly,” Ace said. “However, the Shadows are weaker here. Since we ran into the archangel at the entrance as a strong enemy, this place is probably on level with the last Palace.”

“But he’s not as old as the last target, so we could reasonably train here,” she said. “That’s handy.”

Ace smiled. “Right! So we could get you strong enough to summon a stronger angel, or just another flying Persona. That makes it reasonable to take care of this guy and then move on to that bank.”

“Makes sense to me. Let’s go in.”

The room they entered was large, full of costumes, stage equipment, and props. Shadows dressed in black scurried around the area: retrieving objects, swapping them around, checking on things. More security guard Shadows were around as well, watching over the cleared walkways. She saw another of the ‘Politeness Rules!’ jackets on one; a different guard’s jacket stated ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. While the music was louder inside, it was still muffled through a wall. There were also many televisions on the upper levels of this room, playing different programs on low volume.

Ace was quick to crouch down and touch the floor. “Hmmm… I smell a Treasure not far below us! So we need to find a way down.”

“I see stairs up, but not down,” Joker said. “But I’m sure they won’t make it easy to get down there.”

“Probably not.”

Searching around the backstage area, they found a few nice things to sell among the cognitive items that would turn out to be mere figments if moved. There were a few items that seemed like they could be used as keys, but the guards seemed to be checking on them in their patrols; Joker made mental notes of the potential keys, leaving them in place for when they found the locks. Ace located a map among a stack of papers. However, it didn’t disclose what the basement would be like. It did confirm that there was a dance floor on the other side of the wall, along with bars on the sides. The upper floors were made up of studios and offices.

“There’s a security office up above here,” Joker pointed out. “Those were valuable last time, so we ought to take a peek in there.”

“Yeah, I just hope we can avoid that dance floor,” Ace said. “Not only is that beat loud, but something about it gives me a bad feeling. I’d like to know why, but I’d like to avoid it more.”

“Seems like normal loud music to me, but we’ll see if we can avoid it,” she said.

Up the metal stairs, they found another large storage room with staff Shadows and cognitions hurrying about. There was a strong guard in the security office. It was another archangel, one they swiftly dispatched. In contrast to Madarame’s Palace, this security office was fully functional. A wall of screens showed various views around the club: several angles on the bars, the entrances and exits, the second floor balconies, and the dance floor itself Televisions were everywhere in that space too, with many cognitions watching shows, dancing, drinking, and socializing. As expected, a television station would be geared for entertainment. A man on stage was dressed like a TV reporter and singing about a shogi match.

“Look at this screen, Joker,” Ace said, pointing out a computer screen in front of where she’d sat down. “Standards of the Subliminal Suggestion System. I know the subconscious, but what does that mean?”

She looked it over a moment. “It’s something that’s been rumored about for a long time. Like, if a television program send an image of a soda brand very quickly and repeats it, like in a faction of a second, the viewers won’t see it. But their mind will still pick up on it and put the soda brand into their mind to make them feel thirsty.”

“Does that really happen?” she asked, interested.

Joker shook her head. “It doesn’t work reliably, at least not yet.”

She looked back at the screen. “Ah, so maybe it’s that Hashimoto wishes it works? Maybe that’s why I feel like the music is bad? Because it’s brainwashing those who hear it.”

“We might want to look into it in case we need to get into that area,” she said. “Or avoid the dance floor entirely.”

“Avoiding it might be better, but we’ll have to see if the Palace lets us do that.”

While in there, Joker had the office print up a staff ID since the option was there. It helped as the door to the stairs up required the ID to open. The third floor had a wild mix of colors and swirls on the walls, along with framed photos of stars. Near the stairs, there was a golden statue of a man and woman standing arm in arm, surrounded by spotlights that constantly changed colors. It wasn’t as large as the other statues she’d seen, which was a bit curious. There was a plaque on the wall that talked about the statue. ‘Kyoko and Kenzo Hashimoto: brilliant stars who will show the whole world how to live a good life.’

“This is weird,” Joker said quietly.

“The other big targets we’ve had decorated their Palaces with the same kind of thing,” Ace said, not impressed with this one.

She pointed to the golden couple. “But these are life-sized, not larger than life.”

“Huh…” Ace looked up at the statues, thinking. “And the distortion here doesn’t have a strong influence over the waking world. But he’s in charge of TV shows, right? So he should have a strong influence. Then you’re right, this is weird.”

“He has distortion enough to make a Palace,” Joker said. “Maybe we can learn something about that because this doesn’t quite fit with the other two.”

“Then let’s keep investigating.”

There was also a safe room up on the third floor, in the women’s restroom. They went in to take control so they could warp straight in here, then explored further. For being a Palace, the floor was reasonably laid out; it could be a good match to the real location. A peek in one of the rooms proved that it was a studio. Cognitions there were participating in a game show, cheering and laughing as the teams on stage were in a word guessing round.

“Oo, hey, look at those prizes,” Ace said, pointing out a table that showed off what the teams could win. There was a fancy blender, tickets to Destinyland, and an extremely shiny golden vase.

“That a treasure demon?” Joker asked.

“Mmhmm, sure seems like it,” Ace said, eager and trying to keep quiet. “Think we could win it?”

“Why don’t we just steal it?” she asked. “We don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves.” She pointed out the three large cameras in the room. “Being caught by those should catch the owner’s attention.”

“Don’t you want to appear on TV?” a voice near them said. It was a ghostly young man, one who wore glasses and kept his black hair in a neat ponytail. Something seemed familiar about him, especially the green pin-striped suit, but Joker couldn’t place him. “Everyone wants to appear on TV; they’ll do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame, the shameless fools. There’s even more competition for that these days due to the internet.”

“No thanks,” Joker said.

The demon tilted his head. “You’re very strange then. Ah, could you be those Phantom Thieves of Dreams? Your notoriety is growing; we could inflate that immensely and our ratings would skyrocket. Just imagine, a chat with the mysterious thieves who change the hearts of cruel sinners. Not the heroes we need, but you’re doing good works all the same. The viewers would go nuts.”

“No way, that’d break the mystery,” Ace said. “We’re onto you, demon. We’re not playing along.”

“Is that so?” the demon asked, disdain in his voice. “You won’t find the Treasures in my care that easily. Give it a try. Whether you succeed or fail, I will make a compelling story from it.” He then vanished.

“Did he say Treasures?” Ace asked quietly.

Joker nodded. “So these Palaces are very likely to be linked together, at least by this demon.”

“I agree. At this time, I think we ought to go as far as we can in this Palace, then perhaps come back another time for the other one. What do you think?”

“Sounds like a good plan,” she said, taking out her dagger. “He seems familiar, but I can’t place him. All well, wanna steal a prize? It’ll get me a stronger Persona.”

Ace chuckled. “For a Treasure Demon, sure, we can do this.”

They slipped through the shadows to get to the prize table out of sight of the cognitive audience and the few Shadows in there. Ace handed her a container of Stealthanol while pulling out an alarm. Interested to see what she had in mind, Joker used the Stealthanol on the both of them. Ace then chucked the triggered alarm over the table and across the audience. By the time the alarm lit up, it was across the room in the audience seating.

The Shadows in the room came alert to that area. “Unnecessary noise! Unnecessary noise!” They began searching, but had trouble finding the wailing alarm. Oddly, the alarm had no affect on the cognitions. They were caught up in their show.

Once the audience began chanting as the game show contestants were puzzling over a riddle, Ace knocked the vase onto the ground between them. Joker was prepared and attacked the Regent when it emerged. The treasure demon relented and became her Persona again. With it in hand, they got out of the studio before the Shadows became wise to their trick.

The other rooms on this floor were other studios. They were recording a news show, a comedy show, and a talk show. In a fifth studio, they found Kenzo’s Shadow Self. He had a shimmering silver suit along with a tie that had a miniature television screen on it. The screen showed his own face, mirroring the expression he wore. He didn’t have glasses now, but might be using contacts. Close to him, there was a cognition of what must be his wife. She wore a red dress that was styled like a business suit, along with glittering high heels.

There was a line of cognitions in there, waiting and watching nervously. One of a young man was standing in a spotlight in front of Kenzo and Kyoko, singing a pop song. Not waiting on him to finish, Kenzo pressed a buzzer. “No, you don’t have enough points of interest.”

He was startled. “But I can sing, dance, perform stand-up comedy, act….”

“Your looks and name are far too common,” Kenzo said, echoing the disdain from his demon. “Your situation is far too normal. You’re no poor boy just trying to make a living, nor a tragic star who’s climbing up from the bottom. We can’t even fabricate a scenario that would make you interesting. No, you’re just plain normal and that sucks. We don’t want you. Next!”

A teenage girl came up next. “Hi, I came back in on request?”

He looked excited for that. “Ah yes, our lovely young blacksmith who’s daring to take on a family trade traditionally passed down from father to son, only you have no brother and are trying to keep the trade secrets alive. Wonderful! Your story will bring in busloads of viewers! But you’re going to have to give up on your trade to become a wife.”

“Huh?” she asked, confused.

“I figured out a way to increase the ratings even further: turn your story into a romance! We’ll have a handsome young orphan sweep into your life, taking up blacksmithing under your father and becoming a brilliant master. You may have to forge some swords to make our male star convincing, but you’ll have a beautiful wedding at the end and we’ll all share a fortune in reality stardom. It’s a winning formula! What do you think of that?”

“Well I wanted to stay as a blacksmith until I became a master,” she said.

Kenzo pounded on the table beside him. “No! That won’t be convincing at all, completely implausible and improper. That kind of story is not what our twisted society needs to improve! A success story of a male orphan is not only more convincing and more clean, but also more compelling than a female heir becoming a success. But don’t worry! Your guts at the start will earn you many fans and they will cheer to see you attain marital happiness. That satisfaction will reward the viewers who are good and proper people, and shame those who distort social morals.”

“But…”

“Just keep your continued smithing a secret if you must; my formula is guaranteed to succeed. So that’s what we’ll do.”

“If that’ll make me a star,” she said.

Joker didn’t see anything about the room. On seeing Ace shake her head too, they left the room. “I would love a show where that girl is successful at her trade,” Joker said.

Ace nodded. “Yeah, why doesn’t that guy want her to star?”

Shrugging, she said, “Maybe it’s mass appeal? Because her story without the romance might be considered niche.” She tapped her mask. “While this isn’t good, it’s not as bad as the others. Even some of the Mementos targets are worse than this, so why does he have a Palace?”

“I suppose distortion doesn’t care for how rotten a person is,” Ace said. “But changing him might not have as much of an impact.”

“But the Palace is still exerting a negative aura, isn’t it?” Joker asked.

“Maybe, or maybe it’s the other Palace?” She shrugged. “Who knows? We’ve only explored a little bit of this place. There might be something more rotten further in.”

“Right, let’s figure out what’s going on,” she said.

The next stairway up was at the other end of the third floor. There wasn’t another stairway down, unfortunately. But in looking, they found a locked chest under the stairs. Among the healing items, there was a small tag that fit onto the knot of Ace’s bandanna. She said it made her feel better protected; it must have been something magical in nature.

By the map, the fourth floor was the top floor. There was a rainbow motif to the murals on the walls and floor, something that belonged to a children’s show rather than a floor of studio offices. There was also a large crowd in the hallway; Kenzo’s Shadow Self was there along with the blacksmith girl cognition from earlier. “All right, we have a new starlet!” Kenzo said proudly. “Now, who wants to show her the ropes?”

“She’s too old for me,” one of the staff cognitions said.

“You sure she’s starlet material?” another asked. “She’s all muscular.”

“I’m a blacksmith,” the girl said.

“Right, she’s a strong healthy girl,” another staff cognition said. “More attractive than your twig models. Hey, let’s exchange numbers and get to know each other.”

“You trying to bed me?” the girl asked, seeming strangely interested.

An airhorn blared as security guards teleported in to surround the group. “Wrong hours!” they shouted. “No sexual references! No innuendos, wrong hours!”

“Huh?” the girl asked, shocked.

“Calm down, she’s new,” Kenzo’s Shadow said, giving a proud smile. “All of our stars need to appear clean. These fellows are not just security guards; they’re also moral guardians! They make sure our station remains clean and respectable. As a result, none of your filth appears on television.”

“Oh,” the girl said, disappointed.

The man who’d wanted her number came forward as others moved away to the offices surrounding them. “They take some getting used to, but they’re not everywhere. Come on, we’ll go somewhere they don’t to get closer, if you know what I mean.”

“Thanks goodness,” she said. “I was prepared to do anything to get famous. Let’s go.”

“The guards are also moral guardians?” Ace asked. “What?”

Since she didn’t understand, Joker explained, “It’s a term for people who complain about inappropriate material being in the media. They police TV shows, music, and movies for things they wouldn’t want children seeing. While they can go too far, this is weird. We’re thieves, yeah, but we’re thieves cleaning up a distorted society, not battling moral guardians.”

“NO SMOKING!” a moral guardian bellowed from elsewhere on the floor.

“Though if they are going too far and distorting things, that’s fine,” she added.

“The existence of a Palace means something about this is heavily distorted,” Ace said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s distorting about encouraging people to follow morals, though?”

“It’s because of the fruitlessness in getting others to be good people,” the demon said, appearing again as a younger Kenzo. “Share things, don’t hurt others, be polite and quiet, don’t be rude; these are things we teach in the earliest parts of education. But even as children, bad behaviors become the norm among the vast majority of people: telling lies, avoiding responsibility, being disruptive. It gets worse as they get older and become obsessed with sex, money, violence, and drinking. I’m going to clean up society whether they like it or not, just as you are.” He then vanished.

There was a moment of silence between them. “Uh, it is what we’re doing,” Ace said quietly, tugging at Joker’s coat. “Are we doing bad things?”

“One could say that,” Joker said, then shook her head. “There’s still strange things here, like why the ground floor is a club flanked by bars when he seems to be against drinking. We’ll investigate and make a judgment call later.”

“Yeah,” she said, calling the map back out. “Seems like this place is mostly offices, with a huge one over there. That’d belong to Hashimoto; we could find good info in there, like a way to the basements.”

She nodded and started heading that way with her. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. The door was locked (and decorated with a smiling sun and puffy clouds). There was a paper posted nearby: ‘To maintenance staff- If you require entry and Hashimoto is out of the office, please inquire about the keys at office D.’ The map didn’t label the offices, but there were three empty blocks that could hold smaller offices. Two blocks were on the west side of the building, with one on the east. After a quiet exchange with Ace, they went to the west half of the floor.

There were two offices against the south wall; they could be discounted for now as they were labeled F and G. Instead, they entered the other separate office area. The atmosphere in there was drastically different than the sunshine and rainbows in the rest of the floor. There was a maze of cubicles in dark colors, decorated with pornographic pictures and accented by blaring music full of swearing. From an overflowing trash can nearby to stains on the cubical dividers, this area was much dirtier than outside.

“Gross,” Ace muttered.

Something screamed viciously just out of sight. Joker spotted the Shadow rushing at them in time to avoid the leaping knife attack. As Ace pulled out her sword, the Shadow split up into five little imps with pumpkin heads and tattered black suits. “Gimmie money!” the one in the center called. “Or gimmie your life!”

“Not a chance, shrimps,” Ace said, using Magarula against them. It destroyed four of them.

The fifth in the center barely survived. “Aaah, lemme go!” he squealed.

Pointing her gun at him, Joker asked, “After you demanded our lives? No.”

“Waaahhh!”

“Sheesh, it acted all tough only to be proven a crybaby,” Ace said.

“Hey, you one of the Jacks?” Joker asked. The pumpkin head and face seemed like Pyro Jack.

“Iiiiiii Mini-Mugger!” he declared, waving his knife around. “Life or money! What would you demand?”

Guessing from how it was acting, she said, “Your life as my Persona.”

The Shadow cackled. “Yes! Good! Yes, I am Jack Ripper! Rip and slice!” He turned into a mask to fuse into hers.

“I thought so, but it’s different from the angels,” Joker said, touching her mask.

“So is this area,” Ace said.

“Hey, you looking for a career in show biz?” another Shadow asked, approaching them. This one wore a tacky white suit; a pin of a skimpily dressed swimsuit model was on the chest pocket.

“We’re just looking around,” Joker said as Ace disappeared into the shadows.

The Shadow chuckled and rubbed its hands together. “There’s no need to be shy about things. Everyone wants to be a star. You’ll need to go back to the previous floor to the testing studio, wait in line. Though if you don’t want to wait in line, you could do me a favor to get an in with the Hashimotos much quicker.”

“No, not a chance,” she said.

“Aw come on baby, don’t deny our desires.” He turned into an incubus and flexed his body. “Let’s have some fun.”

“No.” Fortunately, Ace was able to do a sneak attack on the incubus to dispatch it just as quickly as the Ripper Jacks. “For all the perversion, these Shadows are easy.”

The demon appeared again, looking disgusted. “This is why people should be changed. Climbing the ranks through sexual favors and social drinking is the norm here; nothing I’ve done so far has changed that. It’s disgusting.”

“People easily become hurt in an environment where perverts have control,” Joker agreed.

“I don’t care what they do to each other, to be honest,” the demon said. “Sinful people deserve to be hurt by other sinners. I’m surrounded by pedophiles, rapists, nymphomaniacs, thugs, sadists, greedy slugs… and the police are full of themselves, taking bribes and letting themselves be controlled by a devil in human guise. And I have to entertain all of these sinful morons in order to have a chance to put on some decent clean shows. I hate it, but I must keep such things to myself to put on a good example, even if they never follow suit.”

Joker narrowed her eyes at him. “If you know the people under you are terrible like that, why don’t you fire them and help the victims?”

He shook his head. “It won’t matter, they’ll be replaced by other terrible souls. On top of that, there are no true victims; anyone who claims to be a victim is a selfish whiner who put themselves in a position to be victimized. But this sorry state of affairs won’t last. I will wipe everything clean.” He then vanished again.

“Okay, now this is seriously screwed up,” Joker said.

“No kidding,” Ace said. “Should we look around here?”

“Perhaps, just in case,” she said.

There were no little treasures in this room, just trash in various forms. But there were some posters around that had suspicious clues and snarky additions. ‘Offices A, B, and C have bunnies (not the sexy kind).’ ‘Office A or E is the largest of that group (duh).’ ‘Offices C, D, and E have cute (childish) stars.’ ‘Offices B and D have the same (dumb) door color scheme of Office F.’ ‘Moral Guardians may be strict but they are wise (They all suck, but if you don’t suck up to them, you’ll get no bonuses and have to deal with the princess).’

“The office we want must be on the other side of the building,” Ace said when they left the cubicle maze. “And it seems there’s some logic puzzle going on.”

“A simple one,” Joker said, looking over at the other two office doors. “Office D is going to have a door without bunnies, with stars, and in a green and yellow scheme.”

In the other block of five offices, there were windows peeking inside each room; they revealed that Moral Guardians were waiting there, watching their doors closely. Only one door matched the clues as Office D, as expected. Getting an idea, Joker shifted her Persona to Archangel before taking the doorknob. “Ace, would you keep hidden just in case?” she asked. “I want to try something.”

“Sure,” Ace said, blending into the shadows around the doorframe.

When she opened the door, the Shadow inside turned into an angel type she hadn’t seen before; it carried a book and a golden staff. “Ah, you’re one of us?”

From her Archangel, she knew that this angel, a Principality, would be able to distinguish lies. She’d have to get creative. “I’m fighting against a distorted society,” she said.

The Principality accepted that. “We must all do our part, those of us who still see with pure eyes. What do you seek from me?”

“The key to Hashimoto’s office,” Joker said. “I want to know more of what’s going on, like the Subliminal Suggestion System.”

He nodded and tossed over a key. “Very well, you will find more information to help create a pure world there. But for the System, there will only be general information in the office. You’ll need access to the lab for full information. Although if you wish to experience the System for yourself, you need only go down to the club. It is built to lure in the corrupt to enlighten them. Once it works in reality, the path of enlightenment will be open to all.”

“I see, then I need to learn of this more than I thought,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Please shut the door behind you, so that all is orderly.”

Joker nodded and closed the door as she left, to keep them from being suspicious. Ace came out of hiding once they were clear. “Man, that was easy. That angel would’ve been tough to fight, but we could manage.”

“It’s just easier to get out without a fight,” she said. “This pure world talk weirds me out; it’s the kind of thing that comes from supervillains, not angels.”

“Yeah, it’s like he doesn’t trust other people,” Ace said.

“I’d believe it,” Joker said, then tossed the key up. “Well then, let’s check out this office and secret lab.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've only just entered this Palace, so I'll probably ramble more about this later, but Kenzo is based on a vague no-name person in the game along with a few small canon ideas that didn't get explored much. Kyoko is a character I created to compliment him and those ideas. And since we're dealing with two Hashimotos at once, I'll be using their first names so it's not confusing.


	37. Moral Guardians

5/30

There was another safe room down the hall from Hashimoto’s office, again in a women’s restroom. But it made some sense. After a short break in case a strong Shadow was ahead, they unlocked Hashimoto’s office. Due to Moral Guardian Shadows pacing around the halls, they had to wait a minute for a chance to enter unseen.

They were greeted by bouncy music and cheery singing. The office was a continuation of the rainbows and sunshine theme from outside, now with swaying flowers that hummed various notes. On one side, there was a small stage with pink curtains where four puppets of cutesy kids were singing a nonsense song. The opposite wall held stacks of televisions, about half of which were playing various episodes of a show with the kid puppets.

Crouching down, Joker quietly told Ace, “I thought I recognized things. These are the Goodkin Kids, from a show that tried to teach kids how to be well-mannered and happy. Kenzo must be the adult host of the show, acting as their teacher.”

“Were they popular?” Ace asked.

“Among very young kids,” she said. “But if you still liked them in elementary school, you got made fun of. Some of their songs were real earworms.”

“Is the show still going?”

Joker shrugged. “I know it got canceled at some point, but if he’s lead producer around here, he could have remade it.”

Ace put her hands on her hips. “Hmm… they seem preoccupied, so let’s try to find the info ourselves. And look, isn’t that an elevator? That could be our way down.”

Unfortunately, the card scanner on the elevator did not accept Joker’s staff ID. It did let them mess with Hashimoto’s computer, surprisingly. Television schedules, meeting data, and sponsor information were open to being looked through. Although, a number of lines simply said, ‘Ask Kyoko for more info’. After flipping through the windows, Joker spotted another in the footer bar. Metaverse Data. She tried to open it only to get a password screen.

“Hey, check it out,” Ace said, having a drawer open. She had a security card, this one labeled ‘Lab KYO Access’. “This should get us in the elevator, right?”

“It should,” she agreed. On a hunch, she put in ‘Kyoko’ into the password entry; it got accepted. “He has information on the Metaverse.”

“Really?” she asked, stretching up for a better look. “What’s he know?”

“I’m about to find out,” Joker said.

‘Metaverse- An alternate supernatural realm where every layer represents a person’s understanding and interpretation of the world around them. Metaverse layers reveal a great deal about the person’s personality and internal thoughts. Manipulating the Metaverse can affect the person connected to the particular layer. It is theorized that this manipulation could be done on a larger scale through someone with a strong will using subconscious influence over others.

‘Very few people can enter the Metaverse at will. One such agent is Ultrablack, an assassin who can be hired to act against specified targets. To hire Ultrablack, one must contact the Council to Rescue Japan’s Future.’ This was followed by a list of contracts apparently fulfilled by this Ultrablack.

“An assassin called Ultrablack?” Ace asked. “Does it have something to do with the black masked guy the guards were worried about in the last Palace?”

“It’d be reasonable even if the name is cheesy,” Joker said, clicking around. “Doesn’t seem to be any more info than this here.”

“Hey, that Ultrablack character might be another one of the players for the Game you’re in,” Ace said. “Since they can get in the Metaverse.”

Joker nodded. “Knowing more about them would be valuable. Maybe the lab will have more.”

“Heeeey, we have visitors!” one of the Goodkin kids said, pausing their dance. “Are you friends?”

Ace looked over, unsure of what to do. Joker snapped her fingers and sang, “We’re Goodkin Kids, good as good can be!”

The four puppets cheered and continued with, “Sweet and kind and always paying mind!” Then one of the boys clapped his hands and said, “Weeee’re gonna change the world soon! Subliminal!”

The other boy continued. “They’re gonna make everybody addicted to our channel, where they’ll learn everything from our channel. And then!”

“And then!” a girl said, “We’re gonna sing of goodness and unity so everybody becomes good!”

The other girl finished, “Those who don’t fit in will learn to fit in! Everyone will become polite, pure, and humble! There will be no more disgusting sin, no more fighting or rebels. The world will be full of Goodkin Kids!” The four all cheered and went back to singing.

“Pfft, that’ll be boring,” Ace mumbled.

“Agreed,” Joker said, setting the computer windows back in place. “I’m glad they didn’t expect me to sing the rest; I don’t remember it.”

They went to take the elevator, only to get an error message with the KYO security card. “Really, it doesn’t work?” Ace asked.

“Maybe something will happen if we take this to the other Palace,” Joker suggested, pointing out the ‘KYO’ part of it.

“Hmm, that’s worth a shot,” Ace said. “The Shadows here are weak, but wanna train anyhow?”

“There’s a few stronger ones like the Principality,” Joker said. “We can identify those to ambush.”

“True.”

After recruiting a few stronger ones and getting to where they could quickly defeat the same Shadows, they left the Palace so Joker could go into the Velvet Room. Igor was in and awake today. “It’s been a while, Trickster,” he said. “Care to report in on your rehabilitation?”

“Ask my probation officer,” Chou said.

Caroline hit the bars with her baton. “Hey, you were asked a question! Answer it properly, Inmate.”

“I did,” she said. “How do you expect me to know how I’m doing in being rehabilitated?”

“That is a good reason to remake your connection to me,” Igor said. “Would you like that to be done?”

“What can you offer me that my current connection can’t?” Chou asked.

“I was planning on blessing you with the ability to bear eight Personas rather than six,” he said.

She shook her head to that. “I can carry nine now. Didn’t you notice?”

Igor stared at her a moment. “Hmm, I see. Who are you connected to now?”

“I dunno,” Chou said. “They haven’t given me their real name yet.”

“It would benefit us all for you to explain,” Justine said.

“That’s as much as I can explain,” she said.

“Be sure to check in more often,” Igor suggested. “And find out who this mystery Confidant is; such secrets can prove detrimental to you.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Then what is your business here today?” Igor asked.

“With these two, for executions,” Chou said.

Igor shrugged to that and kept quiet from there. On discussing what Personas she could get with Justine, Chou found out she could fulfill their next request thanks to a Makami with Frei that could be fused into Shiisha. She fused it first; it had an interesting looking skill called Rampage that might be useful. As she thought, it was a lion statue that might guard a temple.

“Ah, you’ve fulfilled the next task,” Justine said. “What does this one teach you?”

Calling out Shiisha, Chou answered, “Skills that might not be naturally learned can be passed on through executions, I believe. Though I got lucky this time in that the first combination I found had the skill we wanted.”

Caroline nodded along with her sister. “Right, and that kind of luck won’t always be there for you! But knowing this is important for skills you find yourself using a lot, so you don’t have to rely on pitiful weak Personas for a spell you don’t have otherwise. These are the basics of basics.”

“But you seem satisfied that the inmate has fulfilled our request,” Justine said.

“Not by a lot,” Caroline insisted. “So, what’s this spirit again?”

“They guard temples,” Chou said.

“Right,” Shiisha said, sitting by her side. “Me strong! Me protect what’s important. And me special with special magic! Thank you, Trickster.”

“No problem,” Chou said.

“But should have twin too,” Shiisha said, looking to Justine and Caroline. “Twins great! Can look in all directions, see what other missed.”

“That’s a benefit for a temple guard like you,” Justine said, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure how much of a benefit it is to us. We’re not often separated.”

“But aren’t you at times?” Chou asked. “One of you will be here while the other watches the doors in the real world.”

“That’s still not far,” Justine said.

“Me twin would be close,” Shiisha said. “Watch all directions for danger.”

“Do we need to watch all directions for danger?” Justine asked, looking to Caroline.

“I don’t see why we’d need to,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Our Master watches over this place. He’d spot danger well before we did.”

“Nevertheless, it may still be important,” Justine said. “Oh, and we did find a way to reward you for completing our tasks.”

Caroline nodded. “Yeah, there’s a number of other rituals we can perform for you. Since you’ve completed two tasks, we’ll now allow you use of the group guillotine; it’ll allow you to execute three or even four Personas at once. I bet you’re weeping with joy at that news, Inmate!”

“Sounds interesting,” she said, acting as deadpan as she could.

“Hmph,” Caroline said, rolling her eyes. “And the next task?”

Justine nodded and checked the list. “Next, we require a Matador with Magaru. We’ll discuss your next reward then.”

“All right,” Chou said.

As it turned out, she could almost execute for Matador right away. Almost. Regent could turn Mokoi into Matador, as they had suggested before. However, the twins stopped her. “You’re not strong enough to control this spirit yet,” Justine explained.

“That’s a pity,” Chou said. “What kind of strength will it take to summon him?”

“That is difficult to explain,” Justine said, putting a hand to her chin. Then she looked up at her and nodded. “All right… I can see that Arsene will learn Enduring Will next. When he has Enduring Will, you should be strong enough to summon Matador. Should be; you’ll have to ask again.”

“Got it,” she said. She fused a few other Personas to improve her skills, then headed out to get home.

Since it was Monday, Chou went to the bathhouse for the mugwort bath. It wasn’t that late, but it felt very late to her. A shower and a good soak helped her to relax. There was a lot that happened today, a lot to think over. What was going on with Ms. Kawakami? How was she going to call a maid service without getting caught by Sojiro? There was a public phone in Leblanc, but also a security camera (one that Futaba tapped into). Was their goal in Gun About going to help Makoto? Or distract her from things? It could be bad if Sae found out and decided Chou was a bad influence. And what was going on with Haru for that matter? That wasn’t even getting into the Palaces…

“Oh, hello dear,” one of the older women said to her. It was the one who’d been giving her beauty tips. “Are you okay? You seem very tired.”

“I am tired, but I’ve been doing a lot lately,” Chou said. “But I’ll be fine; I’ll certainly sleep well tonight.”

She sat down in the bath by her and patted her shoulder. “That’s nice, but try not to overdo things. I know it’s tough when nearly everyone is expected to work hard, but we don’t want more victims of karoshi.”

“That’s true,” she said. “Thanks for the concern, Granny. I hope you don’t mind me calling you that.”

She chuckled delightedly at that. “Oh, it’s no trouble, I’d love it if you did. What is your name, by the way?”

“Chou Amamiya,” she told her.

“That’s a lovely name. Do you mind if I call you Chou-chan in exchange?”

“That’s fine, Granny,” she said, smiling. “And thanks for all the tips you’ve given me; it’s helped a lot.”

“It’s no trouble, I’m glad to help,” she said. “Speaking of, have you considered letting your hair grow out?”

“No, my mother insisted I keep it short,” she said, tugging at some of the curls. “And it’s unruly enough short. It could be more trouble longer.”

But Granny shook her head. “No, it may help to grow it out some. At least it was that way with me when I was younger.” She toyed with Chou’s curls too. “See, they’re light when your hair is short like this, so the locks go all over the place. It may not seem like much, but when you put more weight to the curls by growing them out, they’ll have to start hanging down. From there, you can train your hair to fall neater. Maybe not perfectly neat, but it shouldn’t be as bad as you think.”

“Well I’ll want to trim my bangs soon, but I could give that a try,” Chou said.

* * *

‘I had some plans for today, but they didn’t work out. All well, I still feel like it was a productive day. That’s even though I spent a couple hours in the arcade with Makoto; we did something pretty cool in beating a hidden boss. More important than that, she’s warming up to me. We had a good conversation after that.

‘It’s kind of weird running into a teacher outside of school, though we didn’t really talk much. I hope Ms. Kawakami is okay; maybe she was just tired.’

* * *

5/31

An unexpected piece of gossip was spreading around Shujin, about someone Makoto had mentioned yesterday: Goro Akechi. Apparently, he was more renown than Chou had figured. Other girls seemed impressed and infatuated with him. From his fans, she learned that he’d been on a popular talk show yesterday and said some things against the Phantom Thieves. However, Chou didn’t have time before classes started to see if there was a recording of the show online.

She had another session with Maki during school, during which she explained about her arrest and how bewilderingly fast everything went down. “The officers let me read some books about judicial processes, so I thought it’d take a while,” Chou said. “Like they’d be getting things sorted out now. But they had nearly everything decided in a week without any input from me.”

“That’s strange,” Maki agreed. “And very unfair to you. That man must be someone powerful.”

“I’m sure of it,” Chou said. “I was angry for a while because the only thing I can do as a result is not get in trouble at this time. But I’ve realized, it’s good to have a second chance despite how narrow a path I have to walk to see it through. It’d be better if this kind of thing couldn’t happen; I’m just not in a position to say anything out loud yet.”

“Would you want to do something about it someday?” she asked, listening in interest.

She nodded. “Yeah, someday. Actually, I’ve gotten to know a politician who’s willing to teach me the ropes. It’s a long term plan, but I could do something in the future through politics.”

“That could work to prevent other cases like yours. Is that good enough for you?”

“I think so.” Although the better solution was being Joker.

After school got out, she met up with her friends for math tutoring. Yuuki joined them this week. “Math’s not hard for me, but I thought I could help by teaching you guys my note-taking method,” he said.

“Thanks, that’d be helpful!” Ann said. “I’ve been trying to be more attentive with my notes to keep improving, but it’s tough in some classes.”

“My system works fine for me, but it’d be hard to explain,” Chou said. “That’s a good idea.”

Shiho nodded, then said, “And you two guys seem to have become good friends. Did you succeed yesterday?”

“Uh, let’s not talk about that,” Ryuji said, embarrassed. “Really.”

“It’s guy talk stuff,” Chou said, partly to tease them.

“Oh really?” Shiho asked, raising her eyebrow.

“It’s n-nothing, nothing happened,” Yuuki said, even more embarrassed.

“Sounds like nothing we’d want to hear, so let’s get to studies,” Ann said.

“Yes, let’s do math,” Ryuji said, eager to get that subject pushed aside. “Can’t believe I said that…”

“Neither can I,” Ann said, then chuckled.

They discussed the week’s lessons before letting Ann, Shiho, and Ryuji work on the homework. While they did that, Chou went over to Yuuki and whispered, “Hey, can you help me with something?”

“Uh, sure,” he said, getting up. “What is it?”

“Come over here,” she said, taking him a short ways away to let the others work without overhearing. “I want to know how you post anonymously on the school message board, since I’ve had to log in under my account to read it.”

“That’s not hard, you just need to use the computers in the library or computer labs,” Yuuki said, scratching his head. “They’re automatically logged in with general accounts so you don’t have to use your own ID. Although, you’d stick out to the library or lab staff for using the computers, so it might not stay anonymous for long depending on what you post.”

She nodded, acting like she was thinking it over. “I see. Well, could you take care of something with that? I’m helping out the student council president and there’s something we want spread around without it being connected to us.”

“You mean Niijima-sempai?” he asked, surprised. “Sure, they’re used to me doing work there, even late. What’s the info?”

“Hang on,” she said, opening up her notebook to take out something she’d written during class. “Here, I wrote it to have a certain tone, but this is something she overheard. If you post this as is, it should trigger gossip just as we want it.”

Yuuki read over the message and frowned. “Whoa, really? She overheard this?”

Chou nodded. “We both decided that we can’t let this stay a secret, but other students would be skeptical if the info came from either of us.”

“Right, they shouldn’t be able to get away with this,” he said, then folded up the paper to tuck away. “I’ll get this done right away, don’t worry. And the way you wrote this, I don’t think it’ll be connected to any of us.”

“Thanks, this injustice won’t stand,” she said.

When they got done with tutoring, Haru found her to show her the tomatoes. There were a bunch of little red tomatoes that could be eaten straight off the plant. They had a mild flavor, but there was something refreshing about them. From that, Chou wondered if they’d be a useful snack in the Metaverse. They certainly grew quick enough to keep a good supply.

“I think I’m improving with them,” Haru said, pleased with her efforts. “The first batch I grew didn’t have many fruits, with barely any taste at all.”

“They’re nice, should be good for an energy boost,” Chou said. “I like that.”

That made her smile. “That’s great, I’m glad. You may take some if you like; I need to pull a few to save the seeds, but there’s plenty for snacks this time. Actually, I have those,” she pointed over to some small plants nearby. “Those are more normal cherry tomatoes, ones that’ll take a couple of months to start producing. The greenhouse said it’s a good breed, so I wanted to grow those over the summer to compare to the Tiny Timelys.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” she said. “Do we need to figure out swapping out the plants around school?”

“Oh yes, that’s important too,” Haru said. “We’ll need to do that in the next couple of weeks as the current flowers will stop blooming. Even though summer break will come, people will be in and around school then to enjoy the flowers still.” Putting a gloved hand to her cheek, she said, “We do need to keep the rainy season in mind. The summer flowers need to endure that, and the hard rains that can come later. I’ll speak with the teacher who’s advising us to get our summer flower funds. I can bring you along to the greenhouse this time if you’d like.”

Chou nodded. “Sure, that’ll help us decide what to plant.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know later. This is kind of exciting; I haven’t had a fellow committee member since I was a freshman. Let’s get these tomatoes in; the Timely ones might have a second harvest in a few days, but that’ll be it.”

Once they got done with planting the cherry tomatoes, Chou washed up and headed back to Leblanc. It’d be best if she called Ms. Kawakami in tonight to clear things up. Hopefully she’d collected her thoughts. Since Chou had to wait until Leblanc closed anyhow, she figured coming back early would let her help out Sojiro too. That might help if she got caught doing this, although the best thing would be not to get caught at all.

Since she was coming back in the afternoon, the secondhand shop was open along the way. There was another customer in chatting with the owner. But something caught her eye as she paused there: an old TV set. The tag stated that it still worked fine and gave a surprisingly low price on it. There was even an old game console by it; they should work perfectly together. While she had a lot of things going on, those would be nice when she needed a break.

Chou decided to buy the TV and console, offering to take them over to Leblanc herself. The owner helped her take them up to her room anyhow; he even threw in a DVD player and a game with the mix, since he wasn’t sure he could sell them on their own. As it was a great deal, she was glad she’d taken a moment to see what was in the store.

Sojiro was grateful for her help, especially as they got busy over dinnertime. As things slowed down, he asked, “How are things going with Futaba?”

“I’ve texted her a few times,” Chou said. “She gave me some good tips on an arcade game and I let her listen in on a conversation with my friends the other day. We figured that maybe if I sent her pictures of things I’m doing, she might be interested in seeing things for herself. But it’s up to her in the end.”

“Of course,” Sojiro said in approval. “Still, that’s good. It took me months to get her to talk to me after she moved in here. Then there’s a lot of things she’s into that I don’t understand well, like computers and psychology. Oh but you’re into psychology too, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s nice to see what makes people tick.”

“Well you can learn that without having a fancy degree,” he said, giving a smile. “Most people aren’t bad, just wrapped up in their own troubles. I hear a lot of that through the day. But I don’t really mind.”

“Kind of like people watching, huh?” she asked, feeling that was a good response.

It did make him chuckle. “More involved, but yeah. More importantly, the fact that they’ll open up like that means that they feel comfortable in this place. That’s what I want for Leblanc. Being popular or successful isn’t as important as making sure my customers are satisfied and comfortable. A peaceful respite is something many people seek.”

“Right, so they feel safe,” she said as she got a phone message. She checked the screen. “It’s Futaba, mind if I chat?”

“Nah, go ahead if it’s her,” Sojiro said, going to take care of some cleaning around the counter.

Futaba: You guys gossiping about me?

Chou: We know you’re watching.

Futaba: Gotta make sure Sojiro’s doing work!

Futaba: What’d you do today?

Chou: Tutored my friends in math, planted some tomatoes, bought a TV, and now helping Sojiro out.

Chou: A chill day today, actually.

Futaba: Where are you planting tomatoes?

Chou: On the school rooftop.

Chou: What’re you doing today?

Futuba: Worked on some coding for a game I’m messing with.

Futaba: nothing big.

Chou: A game you’re making or a game you’re cracking?

Futaba: Mwe-hee-hee!

Futaba: Guess, cause I’m not telling.

Futaba: I do need to focus on that a while, if I want to get it done.

Chou: Good luck with that.

Futaba: Thx :)

Something from the television then caught her attention. “On today’s Hottest Meet and Greet, we have some clever folks who’re searching out different kinds of mysteries!”

“A repeat of yesterday, of course,” Sojiro mumbled, still cleaning.

Yesterday’s show? “Was that the one with that Akechi detective guy?” Chou asked. “There were some girls at school who would not shut up about him.”

“I think so?” Sojiro said, pausing to think. “The TV’s just background noise for the most part.”

“I just want to know who they’re talking about,” she said.

Fortunately, it was the show with Akechi. He turned out to be that teenage detective who’d been with the police during the school questioning; the shaggy brown hair with that neat uniform was unmistakable. He was a generally pleasant guest for them, making some jokes and acting a little bashful as his first time on the show. From the first few minutes, she noted that he was also charming and intelligent. No wonder the other girls were fans of his. Chou wasn’t so sure herself, since he was against her.

And that topic did come up. “What kind of case are you following now?” the hostess asked.

“Well I can’t reveal everything about current cases,” Akechi said. “However, I have become interested in a pattern of strange cases over the past couple of years, where the line between victim and perpetrator is blurred as they all involve a sudden change of personality.”

“Are you talking about the series of mental shutdowns leading to accidents and such?” the host asked.

Akechi nodded. “Yes, there’s many strange symptoms that keep repeating in these cases. It may also be connected to the incidents caused by the Phantom Thieves, which is another case I’m greatly curious about.”

“Oh, are you another believer in these mysterious Phantom Thieves?” the host asked, acting surprised.

Putting a hand to his chin, Akechi said, “Well, one must examine all probable angles in investigating a mystery. Even acts that are called magic turn out to have a practical trick to them. I’m sure there’s some slight-of-hand going on with their stunts. Since the cases of Madarame and Kamoshida hinge on dreams, there might be mass hypnotism at work. Or another trick of mental suggestion the leads to seemingly shared dreams.”

“That makes sense,” the host said. “Then is all the talk about stealing hearts or changing them about hypnotism?”

“It’s one possibility among several,” Akechi said. “Blackmail by hypnotism; it’s a scary thing as there’s not much one can do against hypnotic suggestions and assaults.”

“That is frightening to think of,” the hostess said. “What would you do if you figured out who these Phantom Thieves of Dreams are?”

Without hesitation, Akechi replied, “I would turn them over to the police as I believe they should be tried in a court of law.”

“Really? What about the people who say that the Phantom Thieves are saving victims who could not get help otherwise?”

“I am glad that the victims got justice,” he said. “However, the Phantom Thieves are taking the law into their hands, judging and condemning others all on their own. That type of vigilantism is a dangerous path that will lead to a state of fear in people. Both Kamoshida and Madarame should have been stopped, but not in the way that they were.”

He was leading to increased fear by talking in this way, Chou thought. But it was a reasonable stance for someone in his position to take. Whatever he said, whoever was saying it, she had a goal that she wasn’t going to give up. If she was going to doubt her justice, it would’ve been better to not join the Game at all.

When Sojiro closed up, Chou first went upstairs to hook up her television, DVD player, and console. “You were listening to that Akechi guy, right?” Morgana asked, hopping up on the couch.

She nodded. “Were you?”

“Yes, wasn’t it ridiculous?” She held her ears back. “The nerve of him! We’re heroes fighting for justice!”

“We’re also thieves and he’s an amateur detective,” Chou pointed out. “It makes sense that he thinks that way.”

“Are you on his side?” Morgana asked.

“Not in the least,” she said. “The police aren’t doing their jobs right. As a result, a young detective like him gains notoriety just the same as we thieves get things done.”

She stood up and waved a paw, so Chou gave her a hi-five. “Right! So we gonna try out that game?”

“No, we’re calling in a maid,” she said. “I’m just making sure Sojiro didn’t forget something that makes him come back.”

Once there was a comfortable amount of time passed, she went back downstairs and used the bright yellow phone on the counter. This was weird, not helped by when Kawakami answered with, “Helloooo Master, it’s Becky! May I help you?”

“It’s Chou,” she said.

“Oh, right,” Kawakami said, with less cheer in her voice.

“Do you have time tonight to come over?”

“Yup, I’m ready for you! Uh, sorry, there’s certain expectations I have to meet; becomes a habit, heh.”

“Got it.”

“It’s five thousand yen for an hour, is that all right?”

“Sure.”

Perhaps thrown off by how readily she answered, Kawamai went, “Huh? Really? Oh, well then I’ll meet up with you. What was your address? I don’t have it logged for this job, so…”

Chou told her the address of Leblanc. “The cafe’s closed, but I’ll be waiting downstairs to let you in.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in around ten minutes. See you then, Master!”

In the time waiting, Chou kept watch on the camera with Third Eye. It was still on, still recording. But did Sojiro watch them back? She doubted it, unless something happened. Futaba probably wasn’t watching with Sojiro back home. But who knew? Futaba was awake; hopefully her coding kept her busy.

Kawakami showed up when she said she would, dressed up like a maid again. Chou met her outside the door. “We should be quiet until we get upstairs,” she said.

“Sure,” Kawakami said, coming inside. Morgana was still on the couch when they got upstairs; she paused in cleaning to look over them. Kawakami looked around curiously. Also worried. “Oh my, you live here? It’s all old and dusty…” She caught herself, “Err, well it’s a lovely retro chic, Master!”

“I’m dusting things once or twice a week,” Chou said.

“I can take care of that for today, while we talk,” she said, taking up a rag and the dusting spray when Chou showed her where they are. “And you have such a cute kitty here! Is the dusting going to be bothersome?”

“I’ll keep out of the way,” Morgana said.

“Morgana will steer clear, and I can let her outside for a bit if she doesn’t like it,” Chou said.

“That’s good, wouldn’t want to bother your cat.” She sighed before spraying over the bookshelf by the bed. “Well, would you keep this secret for me? I could be ruined if this becomes known.”

“I’ve called you in now, so I’d get in trouble too,” Chou said, sitting at her desk. “I’ll keep quiet about this.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Kawakami said. “Although I hope this doesn’t end up causing you trouble. You’ve had a rough time, what with all the gossip and then those accusations of cheating.”

“We’ll both have to be careful,” she said, to assure her that they were in this together (even as weird as it was). “And I’m sorry for scaring you yesterday.”

“Don’t worry, I should’ve been paying more attention,” she said. “Anyhow, you must be wondering why I’ve got a part-time job on top of teaching.” Without waiting on her to answer, Kawakami went on. “The thing is, I need a lot of money. My little sister is very sick; lots of big medical bills and charges when she can’t work herself. Teaching doesn’t pay enough to support both of us.”

“I see,” Chou said, also seeing that she was lying. There was some reason that Kawakami needed a lot of money; it had to be something embarrassing, but worse to her than working as a maid. “Isn’t that a lot of work?”

She nodded, her weariness showing as she relaxed her guard. “Yeah, it is. As soon as I get out of school, I have to get right home to get dressed for this. I end up preparing quizzes and checking homework on my days off. B-but it’s worth it, for my sister. Although, it is tough because I’m considered over the hill for this kind of work. So I’d appreciate it if you called me in again! Though, I really shouldn’t be relying on a student like this.”

Whatever the truth was, Chou already felt bad for her. It seemed Kawakami was being pulled in many directions trying to balance her life. “I could call you in, just can’t get caught by my guardian,” she said. “Actually, there’s something I should tell you, since we’re relying on each other.”

“What’s that?” she asked, moving behind her to get the window shelf.

“I bring Morgana to school with me,” Chou said.

“Huh?” Kawakami said, surprised.

“You’re telling her that?” Morgana asked, tilting her head.

Chou nodded. “Sakura-san let me adopt her as a part of my probation, like an emotional support animal. She’s been well-behaved and quiet so far, stays in my desk. I mean, you haven’t noticed her yet, right?”

“That’s true, I hadn’t realized there was a cat in the room,” Kawakami said. “Although, that emotional support argument wouldn’t fly with the staff that would decide on that kind of thing.”

“I figured. I have been watching in case of messes; hasn’t been a problem so far and I would clean up after her.”

“I wouldn’t do something as undignified as that,” Morgana insisted.

“Yes, I’m sure you wouldn’t cause trouble,” Chou said to her.

“If she hasn’t caused trouble so far, I don’t mind overlooking her presence, as a part of our deal,” Kawakami said. “Actually, you’ve been an excellent student so far from what I’ve seen. A little of a disagreeable attitude in not paying attention and talking back at times. But honestly, I’ve been impressed with your homework. I’d love it if more students put that kind of effort in.”

“I’d think that my effort was what was expected,” she said. “Maybe more paying attention, but it’s hard when I already know the material.”

“It is,” she agreed. “But it does help on days you’re doodling since most people would take that for taking notes. Getting into a good college is highly competitive and a poor attitude can be a tipping point even for a top scorer.”

“Guess I’ll have to break that habit, then.”

Then Kawakami patted her shoulder. “But since you are doing well and we have a deal, I could let you slack off on my class. Just keep your grades up so we don’t get called on it, okay?”

A chime sounded in her mind as Chou nodded. “Okay, that works for me.”

When the hour passed, Kawakami headed out. She had made good progress on dusting, Chou noted. It was an easy chore, but it might help Kawakami out to hire her again for that. In exchange, Chou might get a bit more time out of her days. Though it might just be homework she kept up on while she had a maid clean.

“I thought you were going to tell her about us as the Phantom Thieves,” Morgana said.

“I was going to,” Chou said. “Even had a plan in case it was difficult to believe. However, she lied when she told us about her little sister.”

“I did notice that,” Morgana said. “So you’re not going to tell our big secret until she spills the beams about her big secret.”

She nodded. “But our deal was enough for a new Confidant with the app, so it’ll work out. Ms. Kawakami might even be a better secret keeper once she can trust me enough to be a better secret keeper.” Then she leaned back in her chair. “Still, I can hardly believe I’ll be hiring my homeroom teacher as a maid. It’s so weird.”

“But better to be weird than to be normal and boring, right?” she asked, sound amused at it.

Chou chuckled. “True, very true.”


	38. Second Verse, Same as the First

6/1

As Chou walked to school from the station, the students around her were gossiping as usual. A loud boy in front of her said to his friend, “Hey, have you checked the school boards? There’s some crazy news up there!”

“No, what’s going on?” the other boy asked.

“It turns out that the principal is rooting for the volleyball teams to lose Nationals!”

“Really?! But why? Wouldn’t them winning be great for the school?”

“He doesn’t think so because it would prove that the students can succeed independently, plus he’s still a huge Kamoshida fanboy.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. But it’s horrible for the volleyball players; they’re been working really hard.”

“But he doesn’t support them anymore. That’s proven by how they were forced to have their rally on a holiday rather than a school day. And that’s not all! Apparently he’s got a small group of the male staff that also wishes that Kamoshida was still around. The person who posted that news overheard him speaking to Yamauchi about that and how they want to kick out members of the track team so Yamauchi can control them better. But if they did that, they’d be kicking out the most talented members of the team!”

“How the hell is he our principal? Does he had no loyalty to the students?”

“Probably not, cause he’s always yammering on about the school’s reputation over what would help us.”

“Man, the school board ought to kick him and the rest of Kamoshida’s fanboys out of school instead.”

Chou felt satisfied with that, but then heard from behind her, “Hey, you think that we should post about Principal Kobayakawa on the Phan-Site? If the Phantom Thieves took down Kamoshida, surely they’d take down Kobayakawa too.”

“It couldn’t hurt to try.”

“I dunno if that’s such a good idea,” Morgana said from Chou’s bag. “After all, we’d want to avoid more clues that we’re associated with this school.”

“Agreed, even if he is rotten,” Chou said quietly.

Yuuki was in the classroom when she arrived. He smiled on seeing her. “Things are working well, huh?”

She nodded. “Yeah, thanks again.” Her friends were really angry over lunch, so she listened in and agreed with their frustrations.

When the school day was done, though, she got a text from Yusuke asking if she could come over to Kosei for the painting. Chou agreed to it, asking for a bit of time to go back to Leblanc briefly. That was to change to pants and grab a few supplies. Then she caught a train to Ueno, where Kosei was. He had given her directions to the school itself, though, not the dorms.

He was waiting at the gates with one of his teachers. After introducing the teacher, he said, “And this is Chou Amamiya, my model for the last major piece I was working on.”

“Good to meet you, sir,” she said, shaking his hand although she didn’t think she’d see him often.

“Same to you, miss,” the teacher said. “Hmm, I wasn’t sure about his proposed idea for the portrait, but seeing you now, it makes more sense. You would be an ideal model for an androgynous look.”

Chou nodded. “I can look more masculine or feminine if I want, so I don’t mind.”

“In that case, take this guest ID,” the teacher said, offering it to her. “I’ve given him permission to use the school studios while he’s attending Kosei, but you need this permission to get in after school hours.”

“Got it,” she said, accepting the card.

As they walked through the halls, Yusuke said, “I hope this isn’t too inconvenient to you, but I can’t bring a girl into the dorms.”

“It’s fine, wasn’t hard to find,” Chou said. “How’ve you been doing in the dorms?”

“It takes some getting used to,” he said. “My neighbors now are so noisy, yelling at each other over games and such. I’m not sure how to deal with them since the dorm supervisor thinks that’s normal. At the atelier, all of us students were so focused on art that there was no tolerance for unnecessary noise.”

“They probably aren’t used to such total devotion to art,” she said.

He nodded. “It’s strange to me, but I suppose I’m strange to everyone else.” Then he smiled. “Though one thing I’m getting used to isn’t bad. The supervisor told me that I look like a rag doll and insists on helping me learn a healthy diet.”

“That’s really good,” Chou said, smiling at the idea.

“He’s a good cook too and has given me great tips for preparing food,” Yusuke said. “It’s a world of difference from Madarame controlling my diet strictly and teaching me only the basics. Though some days, I have to convince myself that I do deserve to eat well. Or Yuina tells me that; she and the others check up on me frequently.”

“Well they are like your family,” she said. “And they know what you’re going though. It makes sense for you guys to take care of each other.”

“Yes, I’m grateful we could reconnect. I’m grateful for your help too; I wish I could do something for you.”

There was a chime in Chou’s head. Good, she wanted to keep helping him too. “Don’t worry about it now, I like being your friend,” she said.

“True, I feel that way too,” Yusuke said.

Because they had a new location, he went back to sketches to make sure he had the changes right. The school had a bell for went clubs should get out, which was how long Yuuske decided to sketch for. “Hey, do you know a good place to eat around here?” Chou asked as they were wrapping up.

“Not really,” he said. “Terada-san did recommend a few places. I just haven’t had a chance to try one. Do you like tofu?”

She nodded. “Sure, and it sounds pretty good today.”

“Good, because there’s a shop here that makes their own tofu and uses it in a neighboring diner. Apparently they make healthy bento boxes for lunch too.”

“Well let’s give it a try.”

It was a good dinner, and the bento boxes on display did look tempting. But as she was going to Shujin, there weren’t many opportunities for her to be around Ueno at meal time. It was a good place to keep in mind for when she was. They spent much of the meal speaking about cooking and various foods.

At one point, he took a pencil out of his pocket. “You know, I had another idea for something to work on. It’s a portrait of the leader of the Phantom Thieves.”

“Really?” she asked.

He nodded and started sketching on the napkin. “They did so much for me and I don’t even know who they are. He was called Joker, I remember that much. And I remember a general idea of how he looks, him and his Persona.”

Who had she been using at that time? “You think you can draw them from memory?”

“I should be able to,” Yusuke said. “Maybe not to great detail, but anyone else who’s encountered Joker should recognize it. He wore a white mask that covered his face, but he has black hair… rather ordinary for Tokyo, I suppose. Their outfit was extraordinary, though: red gloves, black boots, black coat, a refined gentleman. Something like this.” He turned the napkin around to show her.

For being a napkin sketch, it was pretty good at conveying her Metaverse self. He even had Joker in a cocky pose, like she was daring someone to challenge her. Oddly, he had the mask almost covering her face. “He looks cool,” Chou said, keeping cool herself.

“It’s quite a striking appearance,” he said, taking the napkin back to sketch some more. “Especially in combination with his Persona. Joker can blend with the shadows, but not his Persona even though they share similarities. The Persona has a red suit and hat, with a smaller mask. But he also has large black wings and carried chains that bear blue fire. I don’t know who this Persona is, but they’re connected. So despite Joker’s great powers and confidence, he feels like a prisoner of fate as well. That would make his actions an act of rebellion as much as an act of justice.”

When he had the next part of the sketch done, Yusuke had a good start on Arsene as well. “That would make a great work of art too, at least in my opinion,” she said, then chuckled at herself. “Then again, I’m something of a fangirl of the Phantom Thieves. Maybe not as extreme as others, but I have been keeping tabs on what they’re up to. Anyone like me would me be really curious to see an artist’s rendition of their leader.”

“Then this could be a popular piece?” Yusuke asked, interested in the idea. “Although, I’m seeking art for art’s sake, a search for true beauty. Popularity shouldn’t factor into what I do.”

“Well if you really want to make this into a work of art, follow what’s interesting to you,” Chou said. “Though that’s how I decide what to do. Something that’s interesting is a lot more tempting to me to start.”

“That’s true,” he said, still unsure.

“And if it’s popular, hey, it’s a bonus after you’re done,” she added. As far as she was concerned, the art was a good trade for this Confidant.

“True. I can work on both at once; the main problem would be keeping supplies for both.”

After they split up after their meal, Chou took the trains over to the TV station and let Morgana out in the alley they’d used last time. She transferred them over to Kyoko’s Palace once no one was paying attention to them. What greeted them was a familiar sight. The building was again lopsided and lit up brightly; it seemed taller than four floors this time, with more neon designs all over. There was still a large excited crowd waiting to get into Club Hashimoto, while the sign had hearts instead of a sun spiral.

“Whoa, deja vu,” Ace said, coming out to get a better look at the building. “Seems like they share similar distortions, but this is much stronger.”

“They are married and work in the same location,” Joker said. “They probably talk with each other a lot and share similar opinions.”

Ace nodded. “That makes sense. Since the building is the same, we should be able to get in the same way. Let’s go!”

Like with Kenzo, there was a strong Shadow standing guard at the back entrance. However, this one was a Shiki-Ouji. Shiisha helped greatly with taking the Shadow down without having to call in back-up. “So this is going to be similar to the last Palace we took down,” Joker said.

“Mmm, maybe a step up,” Ace said. “Remember, that other Shiki-Ouji was fairly deep. This one is right at the entrance. But that’ll mean Kenzo’s Palace will be real easy after we explore this one.”

“That’s not so bad,” she said. “We are taking on two at once.”

“True.” They went up the stairs to get inside.

Immediately, they were blasted with the powerful bass of a blaring dance song. The door closed itself unexpectedly, forcing them inside. Strobe lights flashed in the dark, illuminating a packed crowd around a central stage. Oddly enough, the singer was giving out a weather forecast through their song. The crowd called back with shouts of “Sunny, sunny!” Massive TVs were hanging everywhere, displaying either the real news broadcast or the dance news going on.

Ace tugged at her coat and tried to tell her something. However, it was far too noisy to hear her over the news song. Ace pushed at the door instead. Joker pushed on the door handle herself, finding it stopped in place. She shook her head; they were locked in now. Was this music brainwashing like that in Kenzo’s Palace?

It didn’t seem that way. Joker offered her hand to Ace, to make sure they didn’t lose each other. Once Ace had her hand, they made their way around the edges to find a way out of the club. There were Shadows among the cognitions. They weren’t very alert Shadows, though; they carried on with their roles and ignored Joker and Ace as part of the crowd. Over by one of the bars, they found an elevator with a card reader. Joker tried the staff card from Kenzo’s Palace and got it to open up.

The second floor was clearly more of the club, so she sent them up to the third floor. “I’m glad to be out of that,” Joker said.

Ace shook her head as if shaking off the noise, then twitched her ears. “Yeah. Do people really enjoy that kind of place? I could barely think for the noise.”

“That could be part of it, to block out their worries,” she said. “But it didn’t seem like a brainwashing music like we suspected with Kenzo.”

“You’re right,” she said, looking thoughtful. “It was painfully loud, but it wasn’t any of that subliminal stuff. Well that’s good, since we had to walk right into it.”

“I’ll be glad if we don’t have to go back in there at all.”

On the third floor, they were greeted by another golden statue, a giant of one that required an opening cut out of the next floor up. It was a depiction of Kyoko in a dress sparkling with diamonds; the skirt split to show off one of her legs while the front had a plunging neckline that nearly reached her navel. With a smug smile on her face, she held onto marionette bars attached to small figures all around the statue’s base. The floor was darker than Kenzo’s Palace too, dark blue walls illuminated with purple and pink mood lighting.

“Wow, the outsides are similar, but it’s like night and day here,” Ace said, slipping into the shadows to leave the elevator. “The Shadows in here are much stronger too. Maybe her distortion triggered his.”

“Makes sense.” She joined Ace, quietly adding, “The elevator goes up to floor six, but exploring around won’t hurt.”

It helped as they found the map on a corkboard, but the area wasn’t pleasant. The third floor was full of private areas of the club that had strip shows and smoking rooms with scantily clad hosts and hostesses. As the guests and staff were a mix of cognitions and Shadows, there was something unsettling to them rather than titillating. But off in the corners, there were treasure chests that made the exploration worth the time. There was a safe room on the floor, in the men’s restroom. That would let them skip here. Though if they could skip to somewhere else, that could be better.

The fourth floor was just as unsettling, with studios that were filming steamy romances and Shadows that kept trying to confuse or infatuate them. As they were getting a chest in a small hallway, the level suddenly brightened from the mood lights. They got into hiding in time for a cognition of a young man to run out of one of the studios. He yelped when he ran into Kyoko’s Shadow. “S-sorry.”

Shadow Kyoko wore a golden dress much like that on her statue; her hair was in an updo with a diamond-decorated comb. It was like she was dressed for an awards ceremony rather than an average work day. “No trouble, I always love running into one of my stars. What’s the matter?”

“The director’s telling me to undress with him,” the guy said. “But Mr. Hashimoto said the formula was good enough. Why do I have to give favors?”

“Oh honey, everybody has to give favors in this business,” Kyoko said, putting an arm around him. “You may as well learn to enjoy it. Come on, let’s have some fun.” She then pushed him back into the studio he’d run from.

“Another person like this?” Joker asked, disgusted by it.

The lights were turning back down as one of the demons showed up. The young Kyoko was dressed in a schoolgirl’s uniform, like a costume for a TV drama. “It’s nothing abnormal,” she said. “We’re going back over the day’s events; want to go in and see more? It’d be informative.”

“No,” Joker said.

The demon chuckled. “Playing the hard to get sort, hmm? You’ll only get the chance here in our dreams. The company does produce adult films at a lesser known studio. They’re the true money-makers no matter how much Kenzo may object. He knows the formulas for mass appeal, but I know the formulas for awards and wealth. There’s just one little thing, but perhaps you could help.” The demon then vanished.

“Why would we help a demon?” Ace muttered.

“They’re full of themselves,” Joker said. “I don’t think we’ll find useful information here; let’s go before her Shadow gets back from memories.”

On getting to the fifth floor, they found a giant movie screen on the north wall, flanked by two statues of Kyoko. It was playing a high school drama with her as one of the actresses. Some seats were close to the screen, but most of the room was taken up by shelves storing books and videos. The walls were filled with posters of shows or movies that Kyoko had been in: this high school drama, an animated magical girl show, a soap opera about an ambassador, a spy movie as the spy’s reformed lover. If all this was true, she was more prolific and successful than Joker had realized.

There was a large group of Shadows clustered around the elevator, chattering like fans. Not wanting to mess with them, they headed up without looking around too much on the fifth. The sixth floor contained the offices in the TV station. Based on how it looked, Kyoko had a lower opinion of such workers than her husband. The floor opened with a cubical maze with the dividers reaching the ceiling. More posters of Kyoko were pinned to the walls, along with vague postings of work schedules or notices.

Ace got out the map to check it. Her ears tilted down after a moment. “No good, this floor is mostly a blank,” she said. “It marks these stairs and the elevator, but nothing about a way to the top floor or the basements.”

“Can’t make things too easy,” Joker said, searching ahead with Third Eye. “Hmm, I can’t see too far ahead, but I can sense the Shadows.”

“Same.”

“How about the Treasure?”

“In the basement like the other. Guess we’ve got to do this.”

Being able to sense ahead let them be careful with their progress and ambush Shadows whenever possible. Some of the dead ends had cognitions in them, office workers surrounded by paperwork and posters of Kyoko. Joker and Ace decided to go around the outside as much as they could, leading them to find another safe room across from the stairs. Despite the plan, the maze forced them back across the floor to find the elevator north of the stairs. A door nearby was the only way further north.

And it was guarded by a Shadow with a red aura. “Hey there, do you have permission to go further?” it asked.

“We have permission to go where we like,” Joker said.

“Not around here,” the Shadow said. “But I could be talked into it. Like, lemme see you on the toilet.”

Really? That was in her cognition? “No, not a chance.”

“Well then there’s not a chance of you getting by,” the Shadow said smugly.

“No, we can go where we like,” Ace said drawing her sword.

“Fat chance of that happening,” it said, changing into a demon on a toilet. “I’ll have you wiped out in a jiffy.”

For all its bluster, it turned out to be weak to fire. Taking advantage of that let them wipe the Shadow out in a few turns. There was more maze behind it, eventually leading them to stairs that weren’t on the map, ones that went upstairs. Unlike in Kenzo’s Palace, Hashimoto’s office took up the whole of the seventh floor. Kenzo’s area was smaller, with his desk near a glassed-in stage that stored the Goodkin Kids puppets. Kyoko’s desk was large and opulent, displaying some of her jewelry. Since Ace barely glanced at them, the jewelry had little potential to be taken out.

Joker wasn’t able to guess Kyoko’s password and the only useful things Ace pulled out of the desk were three pearls. The Goodkin Kids weren’t active either. But at the lab elevator, the KYO security card worked to open up the door. “But we got that in the other Palace,” Ace said.

“It’s Kyoko’s security card, so it works here,” she explained. “I was hoping that Kenzo’s card would be here since we need to get to the basements of both places.”

“We’ll have to hunt that down, maybe in his desk?” She went over to check.

Joker went back to Kyoko’s desk, double checking the drawers for the security card. After a few seconds, something flickered in the air. Kyoko’s Shadow appeared in the room with them. “So someone is messing around in here,” she said. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be the special Metaverse agent for the government, hmmm? Who are you?”

“Ultrablack,” Joker replied as she seemed interested in meeting the agent.

Kyoko had a triumphant glint to her eyes. “Ah, excellent. Wonderful to meet you. And despite the manly look you present, I hear a girlish touch to your voice. Both me and my real world self would like to strike a deal with you, to correct the blindness caused by idiot male pride. Would you hear me out?”

She nodded and played along. “Sure, that’s a blindness that must be corrected.”

After a chuckle, she gestured to the elevator; another security card appeared between her fingers. “My husband and some peers have a plan to use the Metaverse to influence television signals, so they can send out subconscious messages to subjugate the people of Japan. They placed the mechanics to do so in Kenzo’s mind. However, they made a grave mistake: Kenzo doesn’t have a strong enough will to influence television signals from the Metaverse. But I do.”

“I can see that from the difference in your Palaces,” Joker said to appease her.

“Of course, none of them want to admit to a mistake,” Kyoko said. “And Shido will not believe that a woman could have more willpower than a man. Their plan is useless as it is now, plus Kenzo would use such power to turn everyone into bland clones of each other. At least, blander than they already are. I would merely guide them into Lord Shido’s plans. Would you move the machinery in the secret lab from his mind to mine? I can convince Kenzo and Shido that he still has it.”

She was lying about ‘merely guide’, but Joker didn’t want this subliminal machinery working for either of them. “I couldn’t get into the lab in his Palace,” she said.

“This would let you do so,” the Shadow said, keeping the card out. “But I’m afraid that I can’t make it easy. We built the secret lab together so that the path to the subliminal system could not be completed in one Palace. But if you can figure out the path, moving the machinery should be simple.”

“What’ll you pay me for the job?” Joker asked.

“I could give you better payment in person,” she said with a flirtatious look. Then she offered the hand with the card. “For now, take the card and this ring; they’ll be proof of our meeting and agreement. I’d recommend coming by our office on a Saturday as Kenzo is always out on those days, but I’ll have work there.”

After taking both items, she nodded. “We’ll talk more later.”

“Glad to be working with you, Ultrablack,” the Shadow said, then vanished.

Ace came over since the Shadow was gone. “We should speak later,” she said, offering a folder. “Seems you got the keycard we needed before.”

She nodded and took the folder to put away. “I’d like to take a look in the basement, hopefully to find a safe room. But I think that’ll be enough for today.”

“Yeah, we’ve fought through several floors,” Ace said. “I hope there’s a safe room, because otherwise we’ll have to go through that maze again.”

The elevator only went between the office and the lab. It dropped them off in a room that had a checkerboard floor. But instead of the classic colors, there were squares of gray, blue, and orange. The orange squares had glass pillars coming from them, causing a maze of transparent walls ahead. Off to the side, there was a door that thankfully led to a safe room. It seemed to be a janitor’s closet, packed with shelves of cognitive supplies. But with some focus, they got a table with chairs in the safe room to sit at.

“So do you mean to work with Kyoko?” Ace asked, hopping on the table she’d summoned.

She shook her head. “Why would I? She’s a target now. And from what we’ve seen, both she and her husband deserve it for letting their workplace become a haven for abusers. However, I want to know what she has in mind.”

“That was some good info, and we got the keycard,” Ace said. “The folder I gave you was full of info on how this brainwashing scheme is supposed to work. While I just glanced over it, I’m sure of one thing: Kyoko’s Shadow was right in that she would make it work better than her husband. Would you say that Kenzo’s Palace is fairly close to what this place may be in reality?”

Joker nodded. “I’ve not seen it in reality, but most of it makes sense as a television station. This Palace takes the club theme and runs with it.”

Tapping her chin, Ace said, “I wouldn’t know what a television station is supposed to be like, but the levels of distortion I can feel. They’re very different. Maybe Kyoko had the distortion first and began warping her husband’s cognition? She has a distortion like the other targets we’ve had.”

“But he thinks that she’s different from other people,” Joker said. “He thinks they’re both better than everyone else, while she thinks that only she’s better.”

“Oh? How do you figure that?”

“Well it’s mostly a hunch,” she said with a shrug. “Remember the golden statues? Kenzo had both himself and her there, as partners. But Kyoko here has herself puppeteering others, I would guess her husband included.”

“It’s a good theory,” Ace said. “But how can we use that?”

She shrugged again. “It’d be more useful info in the real world. Then again, perhaps it’d be useful for messing with their Shadows. We got Yusuke to break his budding Palace pretty easily, but how easy would it be to get a Palace owner to break a Palace just by talking? If anyone, Kenzo would be the one to try that on.”

“That’d be interesting to try out,” she said with a smile. “Though the guarantee is stealing the Treasure! I mean, what kind of Phantom Thieves would we be if we didn’t steal Treasures?”

Joker chuckled. “Even when we returned Madarame’s painting? But you do have a point.”

Ace then looked back to the door. “Anyhow, we’re on the level with the Treasure now! We probably could make it over there, but I smelled stronger Shadows past all the glass, stronger than we’ve seen yet. And that floor out there suggests that this is some kind of puzzle, one that we’ll have to solve in both Palaces at once because Kyoko mentioned that they’re linked.”

“We should go into that fresh, maybe with some extra training to handle the stronger Shadows,” she said. “I do have a new Persona that I want to get, but the folks in the Velvet Room say I’m not strong enough for that summoning. That seems like a reasonable goal to reach before going after these Treasures.”

“Hmm, then it seems like a trip or two into Mementos is in order,” Ace said. “So we done for today?”

“Yeah, let’s get back home.”

* * *

A cheery humming filled the office; Kenzo was working on the silly Goodkin scripts again, Kyoko thought. She’d need to speak with a few investors to coerce him not to remake that old show of his. Why hadn’t he given up on it yet? Sure, it had been a reasonably popular show that might be profitable these days because he still maintained the puppets and props. But it was best received by preschoolers. Was that really the legacy he wanted to leave behind? Being the idol of a bunch of snotty noisy brats that would give up the show in a couple of years on realizing how lame it was?

The worst part about it all was that he wanted to teach naïve ideals through his show despite knowing that those ideals were unrealistic. He knew that sex appeal was a make or break point for shows; he was skilled at using just the right amount of it in standard television. But just how many times had he complained to her about that basic human truth? She’d lost count years ago. He wanted to force others to become clean happy clones that repeated whatever the station had to say.

Well, the last bit wouldn’t be so bad if she was in charge… empower other women and make the men cower in awe… make them realize they were pigs and should worship women instead… that’d be lovely.

And she’d be getting help on that soon. Saturday, if things went well.

As Kyoko thought that, her head felt heavier. It could’ve been painful, but she’d taken some painkillers an hour ago. Was this what she thought it was? She took a folder from inside her locked drawer and checked over one of the papers inside. Signs that someone was messing with the Metaverse connected to you… headaches with no known trigger, yes. Feeling certain of being told something without any memory of being told… yes. Sudden fits of paranoia… Kyoko didn’t feel fully paranoid, although it did feel like someone was walking in her shadow without being seen. And earlier this week, Kenzo had felt the same symptoms. He’d dismissed it at the time, although she was suspicious. They were connected through the Metaverse now, for a plan that was failing due to some of the usual reasons.

At the bottom of the page, there was a note that if such symptoms were experienced, they should notify the council secretary. But it might be their agent, soon to be her agent. She would need to seduce them. Not that such seduction was difficult, unless the agent was ageist. However, Kyoko felt sure that she could convince the agent to work with her. There was no good reason to report this, not when she was going to make the Metaverse bend to her will.

“Get rid of all of you philistines,” Kenzo muttered at his desk.

“Something wrong?” she asked, setting the folder back.

“Just some complainers leaving negative comments on the old clips I posted earlier,” he said. “They should stimulate positive conversations to convince the sponsors that our show is still worthy! Of course, once we clean up this distorted city, the reception will be a hundred percent positive. But I would like to win this victory first.”

“Negativity is our constant enemy,” Kyoko said, as he liked being told. “Just ignore them.”

“I will make things positive,” he said. Then he glanced across the way. “Are you getting tired? You can take off early if you’d like.”

He’d want to be messing with his puppets, she thought. “I’ve just had a headache today, that’s all,” she said. “You sure there’s nothing more to take care of tonight? I could use some time to relax.” And unlike with other men, she couldn’t coax him into sex for a good evening. He was strangely averse to sex; Kyoko stayed married to him because he didn’t know about her affairs and he still had authority here.

“You can get someone else to handle anything that must be done by tomorrow,” Kenzo said, smiling across at her. “Go ahead and relax; I’ll be home when I’m done.”

“I think I’ll do just that, thank you,” Kyoko said, starting to gather her things. She thought briefly of finding someone to spend the evening with, but the headache was enough to convince her to just relax tonight.

Well, that and think over how wonderful things would be when she could influence the very thoughts of everyone in Tokyo…

* * *

After a few minutes of cleaning to help unwind, Morgana walked over to the shelf where Chou was keeping her clothes. Would she look good in that uniform if she was human? Probably. Though when she could be human and wear clothes, she might go for a cooler and bolder style than the casual and laid back look that Chou had on her days off. Maybe with piercings, something more openly rebellious. Most people she saw day to day looked similar, even those that weren’t wearing uniforms or suits. Morgana would want to stand out in a crowd! That is, when she wasn’t doing some thievery or shadowy hero doings.

A bouncy song suddenly came from the laptop where Chou had been finishing up a school report. Curious, Morgana went over and hopped on the bed to get a look. She had a video playing of those Goodkin Kids singing. The lyrics were certainly strange, something about being a stinky skunk. Then the chorus went, “Second verse, same as the first! A little bit louder and a little bit worse!” And they promptly went on to make their singing louder and worse.

Tilting her ears back, she said, “What are they singing about? That’s not a little bit, that’s a lot worse!”

“It’s just some nonsense kids song,” Chou said, then chuckled. “I used to sing it like that; it was fun at the time.”

“So did you finish your homework or did you just get bored?” Morgana asked.

“Of course I finished it,” she said. “It’s a bonus for social studies, about the Madarame art exhibit and that lecture from Yusuke’s teacher.”

“Oh, so you didn’t have to do it?”

Chou nodded as the host Kenzo appeared in the video to try stopping the two kids from going on to an even worse third verse. “It’s an open assignment until the end of the semester. While that’s not until next month, and Mr. Ushimaru did call it optional, I have a feeling he’ll try to pull something tricky. I wonder if I should pull a prank on him, at least for the dumb exam question.”

“He is pompous and full of himself, so sure, I’d do it,” Morgana said.

“Hmm, yes…” she watched the video quietly for a few moments. Kenzo was giving his own bite-sized lecture to kids about being respectful and how not everybody wanted a lot of noise constantly.

“Hee hee, were you a fan of this show once?” Morgana said, curling her tail around her paws.

“Once,” she admitted, resting her chin on her hand. “I was just wondering if there were any clips of the show on the internet now, and yes, Kenzo himself uploaded these. But now that I’m seeing it again after years, I feel like I enjoyed the show better when the kids were doing silly segments. I remember learning that song from the show, but I don’t remember this drag of a lecture afterward.”

“It sure sounds like a drag,” she said.

“He wrote this show himself. As much as I’d like to skip the lecture, it could be a handy reminder,” Chou said. Once the video ended a minute later, she started a new search. “There was one episode that was my favorite, had a running gag about chickens that I kinda remember…” her eyes lit up on seeing the results; she chose the top one. “Ah-ha, here it is! It’s got far more likes than the stinky skunk song.”

“I want to see,” Morgana said, readying herself to jump on the desk.

“All right,” she said, turning around to pick Morgana up and put her on her lap.

“Hey, I’m not your lap pet!” she protested, steadying herself on Chou’s legs.

“But won’t you see it better from here, instead of off to the side?” she asked.

“Ugh, I guess,” she said, looking to the screen to watch.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad to sit with her and watch the kids’ comedy about being good to pets. Morgana just wasn’t going to admit to liking the lap sitting and company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't recall if the game ever said where in Tokyo Yusuke's school was, but I decided on Ueno because that's where the student exhibit was. Also, the stinky skunk song is one of a group of 'louder and worse' songs that were popular camp songs when I was a kid. The song itself is not important, just the chorus gave me the title for this chapter. But for the curious, here's the skunk song:
> 
> I'm a little stinky skunk  
> Sleeping under someone's bunk.  
> Nobody wants to sleep with me.  
> I'm as stinky as can be!


	39. Reverse High Priestess

6/2

On her walk to school, Chou heard that the negative post about the principal had been taken down twice now. But people had copied it and kept reposting it in new threads. Everyone she overheard on her walk to class was talking about it. Because of that, she decided that she’d prank Ushimaru another day. She didn’t want to draw too much attention away from Kobayakawa yet. After all, Ohya should have her article about Kamoshida out tomorrow if she was having it in a Friday paper again. That was bound to fan the flames. But as a bonus, other students were posting homemade posters, banners, and chalkboard drawings, all cheering on the volleyball teams as a result of hearing that the principal wasn’t.

During homeroom, Ms. Kawakami seemed tired as usual. She was trying to hide it as best she could, likely with some makeup to disguise signs of stress. But she did say, “Oh yes, and before I forget again, don’t forget that the social studies field trip is next week. You need to choose which business you want to visit on the sign-up sheet over there, by Tuesday. If you don’t, you’ll be sorted into whichever group needs more people.”

Chou checked on the sign-up sheet at the start of lunch break. A real estate agency… could be interesting if they got to see some places. Joja Novelties… what was that? A station for police patrolling the streets… no. A garage for public transport and emergency services… car weren’t that interesting. And… the television station that Kenzo Hashimoto directed. That might be a problem.

She brought it up to Morgana while she was watering flowers around school. There weren’t many people where they were, but she still tried to speak vaguely. “We haven’t run into any obstacles like the peacock doors that the trip would help with. But, this could cause problems if we go after the goal too close to the trip there.”

Morgana nodded. “Right, that would give a connection to the school, which would make any student here a stronger suspect. But we wanted to train in Mementos anyhow, and there’s always figuring out how to get in Kaneshiro’s Palace too.”

“There are some problems with waiting too,” Chou said, leaning over to pluck some weeds. And speak quieter so only Morgana should hear. “For one thing, we told Kyoko’s Shadow that we meet with the real her. So the Shadow might get antsy if we don’t. For another thing, even if he’s having trouble using it properly, I don’t want to leave that brainwashing machinery alone because Kenzo might just get it working.”

“Hey, what if we do meet with her this Saturday?” Morgana suggested.

“Really, her?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Morgana got up and came closer. “I know she’s rotten, but hear me out. You can summon her into the Metaverse to talk, like we did with that artist guy with the office job. If you tell her that transferring the machinery will take some time, that’ll help keep the Shadow from being suspicious with our heist being delayed. We might even be able to tease some things out of her about how this secret lab was set up consciously.”

“That could help,” Chou agreed. “I suppose I should look up some things about her, to try and earn her trust.”

As she was cleaning up, she got a text from Makoto. She wanted talk, so Chou agreed to meet up at the school entrance.

* * *

This time, one of the office workers stopped Makoto before she went in the principal’s office. “I just wanted to warn you: be careful of what you say. Kobayakawa has been in a panic because all of the rumors going around school about him. If he threatens you, let me know.”

“Really?” Makoto asked, surprised that she was saying so.

She nodded. “We’re all getting tired of his act. The post that’s causing this trouble was done anonymously, but we’re gathering evidence to support it. So if he is bothering you, it would help to know about it.”

“All right, then I should talk with you after this meeting,” she said, feeling quietly relieved. “There’s already some things he’s said to me that are strange.”

“Sure thing.”

In the office, there was a larger pile of papers on the principal’s desk than usual. He was rubbing his head before he noticed her come in. “Oh, Niijima! Do you know who started this crazy rumor about me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, hoping that she seemed innocent. Chou would have been able to pull that off, she thought. She’d also be able to play this cool. The question was, could she do the same?

“All this talk about me not being supportive to the students,” he said. “It supposedly started with someone overhearing me and making an anonymous post about what they thought they heard on the school message board. Who did that?”

“I don’t know, sir,” she said (which was technically correct). “How could I? It was anonymous.”

“Would you help me look into it?” he asked. “We can’t let these disruptions continue! This kind of chaos will reflect badly on us all. It might even be related to this Phantom Thieves business, which you still need to figure out.”

“I’m sorry, but my sister told me to keep out of the Phantom Thieves investigations,” Makoto said. Should she ask him what his goal was here? If he valued the school’s reputation over the happiness and safety of the students? But he was still the principal; if he spoke against her, it’d be a negative in the view of a prospective university.

“What?” he asked, staring at her in shock.

Makoto nodded. “She believes it would be too dangerous for me. Because of that, I’ve been looking into the Hawaii trip for the second years. It’s looking badly planned and organized, so I’d like to help with that.”

“Oh, that’s nothing to be concerned about,” Kobayakawa said, shaking his head. “They’re going to Hawaii, which is excitement enough. Your trip was there too, so you should know that.”

“Sir, that trip went poorly,” she said. “It would be a pity for that to be repeated.”

“That’s on you for not finding things to do at a wonderful location like that,” he said. “Now, we really need to get the school in good order. People are talking about both of us poorly, as if we’re conspiring against them. We need to find these troublemakers who make our school look bad and set them straight!”

“I’ve been told to keep out of the Phantom Thieves investigations,” she repeated.

“Well I’m giving you permission,” he said. “It’s extremely important to track them down as soon as possible. And investigating them should lead to the gossip-monger.”

“Um, will it really?” she asked, feeling like she wasn’t being taken seriously. Either that or he had no idea what he was talking about.

“It surely will, since it’s all for causing chaos. I’m counting on you.”

“What kind of information do you have on the Phantom Thieves or the gossip-monger?” Makoto asked. “Especially to make that kind of connection.”

“It’s your job to gather the information,” Kobayakawa said, as if that explained everything. “It’s simple: you uncover something ground-breaking and I’ll write you a glowing letter of recommendation that will make you stand out brilliantly. So go on, get this done.”

Nervous but wanting to speak for herself, she replied, “But if you told me what information you seem to have, it would make investigating things clearer. I could pass it on to my sister…”

“No, I asked you to look into things,” he said quickly.

“But she told me to not investigate,” Makoto said.

“I believe I’ve explained this before,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “You can find out things as a student that she might miss. And this is vital to both of our prospects! As well as peace in the school! Why are you complaining so much? That will reflect poorly on you in the future. Now you’ve been asked to do something, as an honors student and as the student council president. Get on it now.”

Maybe it would be faster to report this to the office worker, and her sister. “I see, sir. I’ll look into things.”

“Good,” he said triumphantly. “And you’re not alone; other sharp minds are looking into this, but we must have a wide sample of information. We will stop these troublemakers from disturbing our peaceful school. Thank you.” Then he looked away to the stack of work he had waiting.

“Yes, sir,” she said, giving a small bow before leaving.

In the office area, two of the workers were out there. “Looks like that didn’t go well,” the woman said.

Giving a sigh, Makoto said, “Right. He told me to find out if one of the students here was a part of the Phantom Thieves, which my family has told me to keep out of. He also wants me to identify the anonymous poster who started all the gossip, without giving me any useful help on either investigation.”

“It does sound dangerous to investigate those Phantom Thieves,” the man there said.

“Yes, and I’ve found no student that seems like a suspect so far,” she said. “I would rather stop and focus on organizing the second year’s Hawaii trip after how poorly things went last year.”

“That sounds more sensible for you to do,” the woman said. “Did he try to bully you into it?”

Nodding and feeling glad some adults were sensible, she said, “Yes. He tried to tie his responsibilities into mine, by saying that I had to help keep the school disciplined and safe. And he said all I had to do was find something ‘ground-breaking’, and I’d get a good letter of recommendation. He seemed strangely certain that something like that could be found by questioning the students even more, when I’ve found no useful information so far.”

She nodded. “In that case, and because your family doesn’t want you involved, it’s best that you follow their wishes. And don’t worry too much about the letter; I’m sure most of your teachers would be happy to write one for you.”

“That’s what I’d like to do,” Makoto said.

“About the Hawaii trip,” the man said, “do you know the other staff members on that committee?”

“Yes, I looked it up earlier,” she said. “But they’ve either been too busy to talk about it or I haven’t been able to ask them.”

“Well at their last meeting, only two members show up,” he said. “I was supposed to take notes, but they didn’t discuss any business.”

“It’s been like that the last few years,” the woman worker said. “The principal isn’t interested in keeping them on track.”

The man nodded. “Right. Makoto, could you survey the second-year students about what they’re interested in doing on the trip? It might take some work to get all the committee members together, but if you get that covered, we can pressure them to start making plans.”

“Yes, I can get the student council to start on that,” Makoto said. She hadn’t wanted to involve the other council members in what the principal had asked of her. But since this was a project for the students, getting help to survey the second-years would be faster.

Still, even their help didn’t make her feel like this was settled. Would Chou still be around school? She was on the gardening committee. Makoto messaged her and was glad to find that she was around. Then a memo popped up on her phone. Right, she had to do some shopping today. But she’d already asked Chou to join her… what should she do?

She ended up going to the school entrance to meet with her. “I’m sorry, I just remembered that I have some shopping to do,” Makoto said. “I was worried over something too.”

“It’s okay,” Chou said. “If you want to talk, I’ll listen if you don’t mind me along shopping with you. I could pick up a few things myself.”

“Thanks,” she said, feeling relieved. As they headed out the gate, she said, “The situation is getting resolved, but I just wanted to talk to another student. Anyhow, it seems like some of the school staff are getting tired of the principal too.”

“Is he raising a fuss over the post?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s in panic mode now,” Makoto said. “His demands have become more unreasonable. I told him that my sister said that I should keep out of the Phantom Thieves investigation; she’s my legal guardian, so I’ll do as she says. However, he blatantly ignored that and said that I have permission to investigate, both the thieves and the anonymous post. Like he wants me to interrogate the other students? That’s not one of my responsibilities.”

“Seriously,” Chou said, shaking her head. “I mean, maybe you’d investigate the anonymous post because that’s contained to the school in cause and effect.”

“Right, but we know that’s not necessary.” She laughed. “Despite the trouble it caused, it is nice to bring his poor attitude to light. Actually, I thought about you during our meeting, about how you called out the track team for arguing with each other. I had a feeling you wouldn’t take his bullying.”

“Bullies are fun to tease because they’re often full of themselves but insecure,” she said. “It does take some courage because they’re trying to take control.”

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t argue against him,” Makoto said. “I tried, but it didn’t feel right. I’ve always done what adults tell me to do. So far, it’s helped me to succeed. But going along with the principal’s orders doesn’t feel like success to me, although I didn’t do any better resisting. I did talk with some of the office workers who are gathering testimonies against him, but I just feel dissatisfied with it all.”

“We did get things started by blowing the whistle on him, even anonymously,” Chou said. “It may just take some time for things to really change.”

“You’re right,” she said, looking ahead to the station entrance. “It’d take at least until the next school board meeting to really get things done. We may as well make sure the fire we started doesn’t get stamped out before then.” Then she glanced over at Chou. She was limited due to her probation, but she seemed admirably free-spirited. “Hey, how come you always know the right things to say? Not just with me; I saw how Sakamoto got his act together when you called over.”

“I’m psychic,” she said, completely deadpan about it.

“Huh?” Makoto’s eyes widened and she gripped the handle of her schoolbag a little tighter.

Then she made a playful smirk. “Nah, I’m just really good at winging it.”

Chuckling, she felt like she could relax some. “I won’t argue that point! But how do you wing things so well, as you put it?”

Briefly, she looked up at the sky. “Trial and error, with lots of errors. Mostly, you have to be confidant in your own truth. Being confidant and projecting it well can get a lot of things accomplished, including convincing others of your truth.”

“Being confidant in your own truth, hmm?” It made sense. For her, such a thing was vital to keeping optimistic and free-spirited. But then, what was Makoto’s own truth? She usually just followed others… even here with Chou some. “I’ll have to think about that. Although, it’s odd. You and I are so different, but I like, um, hanging out with you like this. You have very different perspectives from me, and experiences too.”

“Everyone is that way,” Chou said, waving her hand to show all the other pedestrians around them. “And if you can see from more perspectives, you can see the whole world better. Even someone who doesn’t seem to stand out at first can show you new things about the world, and maybe some surprising similarities too.”

“R-really? Well, I guess it makes sense.” She rubbed her neck. “But when you put it that way, my view of the world must be very narrow. I know my family, and the teachers and school staff, but not much of others to be honest. Like, everything around Gun About is completely new for me, yet I’m enjoying it. I suppose I should get out at meet more different people, huh?”

“It’s worth a shot,” she said, then snapped her fingers. “Hey, so you must not pay much attention to school gossip, huh?”

“Um, no,” she said, wondering what brought that up. “I’ve always understood gossip to be frivolous, or so I’m told.”

Chou shook her head. “Nah, people like talking about other people, that’s normal. Heck, some people love it. I like listening to gossip, even when it’s seemingly random things. Like I’ve heard some things recently about seasonal food specials around the city.”

“Oh?”

As they waited on the train to arrive, Makoto learned some interesting things from Chou’s gossip listening, about food, about other clubs and teams around Shujin. It was seemingly random things that might not have importance. Or, they might turn up in a student council meeting. On an investigation, one needed to interview any potential witness for clues. This might just apply with gossip to other situations.

Chou ended up coming to Makoto’s home, partly caught up in their conversations and partly to help carry a bag. “Sorry, I usually bring a rolling suitcase if I have a big shopping trip,” Makoto said as she unlocked the door.

“It’s no problem,” Chou said.

Mentioning the suitcase reminded her. “Oh yes, there is something more you could help me with. I mean to speak to the rest of the student council tomorrow, but I’m looking into the plans about your class trip in September. The location is already chosen as Hawaii, but there’s no plans for activities or tours. And if things go as they did for our trip to Hawaii, none will be made and many students will end up bored.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. “Is Kobayakawa involved in that too?”

“Yes,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “He believes that sending us to Hawaii is all he needs to do to satisfy us. I’ll be tracking down the committee members later to get them planning, but if you have any ideas about what we could plan, I’d like to hear it. I need to make a survey for you and your classmates too.”

Chou nodded. “A survey might give you better ideas to make more people happy, but we can discuss it today. Have you looked up what tours are available? Especially with group or school discounts; those have got to be out there.”

“Not yet, this came up just recently,” Makoto said. “Sorry if I sound scatterbrained.”

“No, you sound responsible,” she said with a smile.

“I should be,” she said, smiling and feeling a little more confidant. She put things away, then used her computer to look up tours and activities for vacationing school groups.

Unexpectedly, the door opened while they were looking up museums. Sae was back? “Makoto, I’ve brought back some dinner,” she said.

“Oh, thanks!” she called back. “Um, I have a friend over.”

“Do you?” she asked, surprised. Sae peeked in on them. “Hello… wait, you seem familiar.”

“You’re one of the customers at Leblanc, right?” Chou asked. “I remember seeing you there; that’s where I’m staying while I’m attending Shujin.”

“Right, I remember you now,” she said. “I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll leave you two be.”

Once she’d left, Makoto asked, “You live at Leblanc? Sae talks about it sometimes, as her favorite cafe.”

“It’s a great place,” Chou said. “I can bring you by sometime.”

“Sure, I’ve been curious to try it,” she said.

By the time Chou left, they had a rough draft of a survey to give all the second year students, a list of possible tours to show the student council, and some questions to ask of the school activities committee.

* * *

Sae had brought back enough that Makoto shared the meal with her. While they had been eating and discussing the survey, Chou had gotten a message from Ohya. She headed over to Shinjuku after changing her skirt for pants in the train station bathroom; she’d started putting them in her bag in case she got called by Ohya or Yusuke, plus it helped out Morgana riding around in there. In Shinjuku, Morgana took off to avoid the bar again. Chou had to ignore a barker trying to sell things to get to Crossroads.

Things seemed as usual inside. Ohya ordered her an oolong tea again. “Geez, you’ve made two busy weeks for me now,” she said. “I got a call early in the morning from my boss. You remember how that principal was on the list of jerks we’re limited on reporting negatively about? For some reason, Kobayakawa was pulled off it. So instead of being protected, somebody wants him defamed, right now, as defamed as we can get him.”

“That’s wild,” Chou said.

She nodded. “That list is full of rich privileged jerks protecting other rich privileged jerks. I looked into Kobayakawa to see why some high school principal was on the list. Seems like he is indeed rich and privileged, part of a small group of blueblood families who still think they’re hot stuff. He fancied himself an excellent educator, so he put in for the job when it opened up. And, ‘mysteriously’,” she made airquotes with her fingers, “all other candidates dropped their applications. That’s why he’s your principal. Man, I wonder what he did to get dropped off the list. They usually protect each other without question.”

“I don’t know, but scandal has flared up around him at school this week,” she said, having planned on telling her about it.

“Oo, what’s up now?” she asked, looking at her.

Lala came over with her tea, so Chou nodded in thanks. “Well, I shouldn’t be talking too loosely about it, as I might just know the whistle blower and assisted them in letting the whole school know.”

Ohya chuckled. “If you don’t tell me their name, I can pretend ignorance just the same.”

Nodding again, Chou explained, “So somebody overheard Kobayakawa talking with one of his little cabal of assholes, in particular Yamauchi, one of the freshman teachers. Yamauchi had taken to coaching the track team, bringing them back together after Kamoshida broke them up. But he’s a lazy coach, wanting to become famous for it while barely showing up to practice.”

“How do you get famous as a high school coach?” Ohya asked.

“Beats me,” she said, feeling she’d accept that answer rather than getting annoyed with a fuller story for that tangent. “But they were discussing ending the track team again because the track team itself doesn’t want to give Yamauchi his silly dreams. More importantly, Kobayakawa said a couple other things that really enraged the students. One is that he feels like discipline has gone down the drain because Kamoshida is no longer around school, so it’d be better if he was still around.”

“What?!” Ohya asked in disbelief.

“That is horrible,” Lala agreed.

“That might’ve been enough to turn the students against him,” Chou said. “But it’s not all. He also said that he hopes that the volleyball team loses their Nationals game coming up this Saturday. He doesn’t like that they only have an adult adviser, not a proper coach. If they lose, he says it’ll be a good lesson to them about humility and the reality of the world.”

“God, fuck him,” Ohya said. “If the rest of that team is like that girl I met, they’re giving everything they’ve got and working past their traumas to take victory.”

“They should have a fair shot,” Chou agreed. “It was overheard by just one person, but it ended up posted anonymously on the school message board. Now Kobayakawa has gotten students and school staff turned against him. Maybe whoever asked him to be defamed is on the school board, or has seen the writing on the wall and wants him fired before he drags their reputations down.”

“I’d bet anything it’s the latter,” Ohya said. “It’s rumors based on things overheard, but even if I preface it as a rumor, putting in that Kobayakawa wants the track and volleyball teams of his own school to fail will enhance the flames that come off his defending an abusive rapist of a teacher.” Then she chuckled at some thought. “But I might still write up that sensationalist tabloid article. Make sure the fires keep going rather than get replaced with other gossip, you know? And with all the work I’ve been putting in lately and your info, I can take a vacation! Woohoo, cheers to that!” She raised her glass before taking a drink.

“Hey, I hope you’re not taking advantage of her to get a vacation,” Lala said.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Ohya said, frowning at that. “I was joking, sheesh. I’m using this time for my own investigation, for Kayo.”

“You’ve not given up on her yet, then?” Lala asked, pleasantly surprised.

“I would never,” she insisted, so forceful that Chou didn’t need Third Eye to see what was going on. She still checked, in case it was just an influence of the drinking. “I might even have a lead now. I knew her best and I know she wasn’t involved in any conspiracy. Whatever happened, I am not letting this shame stain her memory!”

“You have to believe in her,” Chou said; the Succubus she had agreed that this was right.

“Darn straight,” Ohya said, then took another drink. She looked a moment at the little bit left, something occurring to her. “Oh wait, I’m supposed to meet up with that guy tomorrow morning. If I’m going to fix up the article with those rumors, I’ve got to get the corrections done before midnight.” She drank the last of her booze, then put some yen on the table. “If I’ve got this wrong, Lala, keep the change or I’ll fix it tomorrow. See ya.”

“See you, Ichiko-chan,” Lala said, bowing to her before taking the money.

Chou still had most of her oolong tea left, so she took a drink. “That was sudden,” she said.

Lala smiled at that. “She is such a child when it comes to assignments she likes. Since she’s not here, I can’t really tell you much. But Kayo-chan is an important friend to both of us. What you said means a lot of her.”

“Different kinds of friends, huh?” Chou said. “I was guessing.”

“Well you’ve got quite a talent of guessing then,” she said. “But you’re a transfer student to Shujin, right? Why’re you so invested in being an informant for her?”

Looking at Lala with Third Eye… she was another Persona user? Her Arcana was The Empress. “I like seeing the truth getting attention,” she said. The Empress was more about practicality, but truth as an ideal should still appeal to her. “Especially when jerks with power would obscure it. And Ohya-san doesn’t strike me as a bad person. Maybe in a bad spot, but she’s working hard at the same time.”

“A little too hard at times, but you’re right,” Lala said. Then she winked at her. “In that case, I suppose the pin you always wear is fitting.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, curious about this. “It was a gift.”

“A gift from who?” she asked.

Chou shrugged. “I dunno. It showed up mysteriously at a bad point and somehow it’s been reassuring to keep on.”

“It would be protecting you,” she said, then spoke with a touch of reverence that hadn’t shown before. “It’s sadly fallen out of common knowledge, but the form of that golden butterfly is clear to me. It’s an icon of Philemon, a personification of the good in humanity. I knew a guy back when I was your age who wore a similar pin; he was a real life hero, so it was a pleasant throwback to notice that you wore Philemon’s symbol too.”

“Philemon, huh? Good to know his name, at least.”

“Though it is a surprise seeing it in my bar too,” Lala added, more light-hearted. “Especially on a high schooler hanging around.”

“Hey, this kinda place seems like a good one to meet interesting people,” Chou said.

“Well that’s true,” she said. “And who knows? Maybe you could be a good influence of Ichiko-chan too; she’s had a rough time for the past year.”

“That’d be nice,” Chou said.

“Well take care on your way home, Chou-chan,” she said.

Once she was done with her tea, she went out to find Morgana. She was back with Chihaya, surprisingly. “Ah, good evening,” Chihaya said with a smile. “Morgana’s been keeping me company… hmm?” She looked up at her, worried. “There seems to be something shadowy lingering near you, someone dangerous.”

“Like now?” Chou asked, pausing by her table.

“Well, not exactly now,” Chihaya said. “I couldn’t pin it down without the cards… oh, did you come by for lessons?”

“I’m not quite done with the book, but on the last chapters,” she said.

“She’s a good fortune teller,” Morgana said. “You should tell her about the money from last time.”

“Oh yeah, your fortune from last time was right, just as you said,” Chou said.

Encouraged by that, Chihaya smiled. “I’m certain of that kind of fortune.”

Chou decided to take a seat across from her. “Well I’m on a section describing how to make card readings, so it’d be nice to see another reading, like this shadowy danger you’re seeing.”

She nodded. “All right, since that’s a broader reading, it’ll be a thousand yen. Let’s see…” she shuffled her cards.

Watching carefully, Chou followed as Chihaya set up her ten-card reading again. A normal reading required learning the meanings of the cards and the structure of the readings. From there, some story-telling skill was needed for weaving the meanings together into a whole. The book didn’t say it outright, but Chou could see that it required some manipulation by giving the client some key pieces for them to interpret. Like getting them to tell you if they had a significant other, or what their job was, or even letting them talk about their worries before the reading. Chihaya simply focused on the cards and her visions. And when she flipped the last card, Chou’s Third Eye indicated that something was happening. That last card was the central one; it was The Tower, reversed. This would not be a good fortune, however Chihaya was seeing it.

“This is one of the darkest fortunes I’ve seen,” Chihaya said, serious and concerned. She tapped the Justice card, also reversed. “The shadows closest to you are that of a false hero, one who aims to kill but could also condemn you to a life of ruin by their words. But beyond the immediate danger, I see… this is a game of the supernatural, isn’t it?”

“That’s what certain beings see it as,” Chou said. “Does Ultrablack mean anything to you?”

“Ultrablack?” She looked over the cards, tapping Justice again. “Ah… that fits the false hero. You’re a player of this supernatural game, and so is this Ultrablack. But the one who runs the game may be the most dangerous one involved, to both you and Ultrablack… and a third player I’m seeing. All of you have your lives at stake in this Game, and the other two players won’t hesitate to destroy an opponent thoroughly. They’ve done so before. Your chances of victory are slim. But even should you win, nothing will really change. You will be betrayed and your death will be one in imprisonment.”

“I won’t accept that,” Chou said.

“But that’s fate,” Chihaya said, acting like that was final. Third Eye revealed an unhappiness with the finality of fate, though.

“Don’t care, still won’t accept it,” Chou said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll find a way.” As she said that, the odd ripple from before came back.

Chihaya noticed it, given the way she looked at the cards again. She put a finger on The Tower. “Fate is unchangeable,” she said, briefly sounding defeated. “But… there’s something odd going on still. Maybe it’s because you’re involved with supernatural forces? Because all of my clients so far have been dealing with natural forces.”

“Nah,” Morgana said, still on her stool at Chihaya side. It made the fortune teller look at her even though she didn’t understand. “It’s because she’s a Trickster and changing fate is her role.”

“That’s true,” Chou said. When Chihaya glanced back at her, still confused about this, she chuckled. “Fate can be changed; I believe in that and that’s part of why I became involved in the Game. But you know, you’re pretty good. Knowing that Ultrablack is a false hero is quite helpful to us. If you help me with getting into Tarot, and having these insights occasionally, I can show you how fate can be changed.”

Chihaya’s jaw dropped. “C-can you really change fate?”

Chou patted the table. “This one will take time. There’s no avoiding that, not with how powerful the one running the game seems to be. But things can always change.”

“I would like to see that,” she said. “I mean, it shouldn’t be possible, or else… well, all right, we’ll give this a shot.”

There was a chime of a new Confidant formed on her agreement. “Good. We’ll start up another evening; there’s something we need to do.”

Once back in Shibuya, Chou looked up three requests to take care of in Mementos. There was an abusive teacher from another school, a scam artist who was using phishing and blackmail to steal money from several different requesters, and another man abusing his family. She took those requests, then transferred them over. Although it took negotiating with several Shadows, she picked up a nine-inch nail from a Mokoi in order to give to Iwai. She didn’t get Arsene to learn Enduring Will, though, nor did she spot a Shadow that might possibly become a Persona to get her up to Kaneshiro’s flying bank. It seemed this would take more training.

Something odd happened on the third request. Upon finding that his Shadow had created a Palace bud, they walked in to find a busy sweatshop where the workers were producing papers rather than goods. “Whoa, deja vu,” Ace said on seeing it.

“No kidding,” Joker said.

That feeling only increased when the Shadow also turned into a club-wielding ogre. It still hit hard, but was easier than that first time she’d been in Mementos. When she claimed its Treasure, it gave her a ring with a skull on it. Looking at it with Third Eye showed that it increased the likelihood of a Curse spell killing an opponent. Arsene had a pretty good Curse spell now, so it might be useful.

With the Palace bud gone, Ace looked around. “Huh, I suppose that’s another shared distortion. Do you think those two fathers know each other?”

“Maybe,” she said, checking her phone for the history of her requests. “I was just wondering if we’d stumbled on the same person, but no, it’s a different man. It could easily be a coincidence; businesses push their workers a lot, so it could just be the same scenario making the same Palace bud locale.”

“Could be,” she said, then stretched. “I can keep going. You?”

Putting her phone away, Joker nodded. “Yeah, I could get these visions of sin out of my head.”

It was a small amount of progress, but it was progress all the same.


	40. Reverse Death

6/3

The morning meeting of the student council was a little different. The student leader of the disciplinary committee brought up the gossip against the principal. “Students might show up with the uniform changes from that protest a month back,” he said. “However, the cross-dressing loophole has been patched in the time since. I got a message to be on the lookout for infractions. But actually, I don’t want to issue these infractions.”

“Really, you don’t?” the council secretary said in amusement.

“Well would you?” he asked back.

The secretary shook her head. “Not really, if it’s another protest. The principal hasn’t admitted to anything in these rumors, but he’s not denying it either. I can believe that he doesn’t support the teams if they don’t fit his vision; Kobayakawa is unreasonable.”

“I agree” Makoto said.

The other council members look at her in surprise.

But she reassured herself. She should stick up for what was right. “Was the rule patch discussed with the student body? I don’t believe so. In that case, couldn’t violations today be taken care of with a verbal warning? And a suggestion that if they want to express their discontent, the armbands are still considered in uniform.”

“That’s a good idea,” the disciplinary committee leader said with a smile. “I’ll let the others know soon.”

Once they got through the usual business, Makoto brought out her draft survey. “Something I’ve been looking into is the second-year trip. I’m sure my fellow seniors remember how our class trip went.”

There were a couple of groans around the room. “Yeah, it was boring enough that I don’t really remember it,” the treasurer said.

“The only ones who remember much are those who took off on their own and got in trouble over their fun,” the disciplinary committee leader said.

Makoto nodded. “Yes, and from the looks of things, there might be a repeat of that this year. There’s not much that can be done about our trip, but we can at least make thing better for the second-years. I got some information on which staff members are supposed to plan the trip and what we could suggest for their schedule. To narrow things down, I’ve also prepared a survey to pass out to the classes to see what they’re interested in doing. What kind of budget do they have?”

“I’m not sure of that,” the treasurer said. “Sorry, but one of the teachers involved told me that he was going to handle the budget for the trip. I can check back with him if it’s a concern.”

“I was told the same thing,” the council vice-president said; she was also the leader of second year activities.

“One of you two should get that information for us,” Makoto said, then discussed the survey with them.

She ended up sending out various council members off to check with teachers and staff about the details of the trip. She would have handled it all herself, but they volunteered and this would go faster. Perhaps that was still proof that she could get things done.

* * *

Over lunch, the social studies trip came up. “Our teacher got after those of us who haven’t signed up yet,” Ryuji said, rolling his eyes. “But it’s gonna be a drag any way you go, huh? We’re just going to see people work wherever.”

“The places looked boring,” Shiho agreed. “Except the TV station.”

“TV station?” Ryuji asked, surprised.

“Did you not look at the list?” Shiho asked, smiling in amusement. “I made sure to sign up for it before it got too many people.”

“Yeah, I did too even though Ms. Kawakami only got around to mentioning it yesterday,” Ann said. “I figured it’d be a good deal for me, since I’ve been trying to make connections for my job. Getting a look into a TV station would be good for me.”

Except that it was an awful workplace, Chou thought. “I signed up for that one too,” she said. “It sounded most interesting.”

“I thought several of them were interesting,” Yuuki said. “Like the garage or that TV station. But I ended up signing up for the novelty item company because they have an electronics division and I’m hoping it’s that one we go to.”

“A novelty company?” Ryuji asked. “What do they make?”

Yuuki rubbed his head. “A lot of different stuff: limited-time snacks, stationary, toys, and those cheap little games you can get out of capsule machines. You know, like the Pixie Pixel Pet line? That’s them.”

“Those were big in middle school,” Ann said. “You had one, didn’t you?”

“Well yeah,” Ryuji said. “But the battery died and there was no way to replace it. That was a shame; I pulled a lot of capsules to get that bulldog. The TV station would be cool, but it’d also be great to see where they make the Pixel Pet games.”

“The TV station group might be full now,” Yuuki said. “The garage too, if what I’ve been hearing is true.”

“I’ll see what I feel like when I see the list again,” Ryuji said.

After school, Chou went to Yongen-Jaya to continue the medical trial. The dose this time didn’t knock her out, but it certainly made her drowsy. She did her best to stay awake for Tae’s checks and questions. Still, she was nearly asleep when the front door to the clinic opened up noisily. Tae sighed, but put her clipboard aside to open the exam room door. “I’m sorry,” she started to say.

“Please, doctor, could you help my daughter?” a man said out in the waiting room. “She’s been having trouble breathing for a while, and has started losing weight since she can’t eat much.”

“Hmm, a young girl losing weight isn’t good,” Tae said. But she seemed conflicted. “Doesn’t she had a regular doctor she sees? It’d be best to check with them.”

“We do, but he hasn’t been any help,” the father said. “He’s a famous university doctor, but he gives exams like they’re assembly lines. He prescribed a medicine saying it was just bronchitis, but it didn’t work at all. When I took her back, he just prescribed the same thing! But you make your own medicines, right? I heard that from a neighbor. Can’t you help her?”

“Uh…”

Third Eye showed a conflict in wanting to help this child, but also wanting to avoid extra work so she could focus on her medicine. Chou had gotten herself sitting up, even though it made her light-headed; Mokoi thought that Tae would need a push to do the right thing, or else she’d decline and regret it later. “You seriously gonna pass on helping a sick child?” she asked. She didn’t have a lot of energy, but Tae should hear it without the visitors hearing.

“Hmph.” She acted annoyed, but she seemed glad too. Then she looked back to the father. “This university doctor you mentioned, who is he?”

“Oh, Dr. Oyamada.”

“I see. Well come on back here. I have another patient in, but don’t mind her. She’s doing a medical trial with me, so she needs to stay lying down.” She put emphasis on the last two words.

“Okay, okay,” Chou said, doing as told. Morgana had already hopped off the bed to hide behind a partition.

The girl looked to only be in elementary school; she kept closed up and spoke very little with a hoarse voice. Tae had her sit in an extra chair and kept seated to be near eye level with her as she asked questions. After that and getting more details from the father on the prescribed medicine, Tae turned to look something up online. She then left for her supply room.

She administered her medicine before explaining things. “This is likely a bacterial infection caused by a rare mutation that resists normal medications. What I’ve given her should suppress the symptoms; it’ll take a couple of minutes. From there, we can help her body fight off the infection itself. It’ll take longer for recovery than with antibiotics, but we can make it easier to deal with.”

“What should we be doing for that?” the father asked.

“Mm, let’s step out of the room for a couple of minutes,” she said, searching one of the upper shelves before pulling down a children’s book. “Here, if you want, you can read this until we get back.”

The girl nodded, but she waited in the chair instead. As her breathing got easier, she relaxed and started looking around. She didn’t leave her chair, which was good as she wouldn’t spot Morgana. “What’re you doing here?” she asked, her voice rough but clearer than before. “Are you sick too?”

“No,” Chou answered. “I’m helping her test some medicine to help other people get better.” Then a yawn escaped her. “The medicine makes me real sleepy.”

“I’m not sleepy,” she said, although she then yawned too. “I’m not, honest.”

“Oh no, the yawns are catching,” she joked, acting with mock horror before yawning again.

She giggled at that. “Hey, but if you’re not sick, how can you test medicine? Don’t you have to be sick for medicine to work?”

“That’s true,” she said. “But medicines can be strong stuff, and sick people are already weak. You have to be real careful testing medicines, mostly in making sure they’re safe before you give them to the people who need them. Takemi is a good doctor, though. I trust her.”

“Yeah,” she said. When the other two came back in, she asked, “Doctor, may I go back to school now? I feel better.”

“Sorry, but no,” Tae said. “You need to spend some time resting up and eating well, so you can get your strength back. I told your dad what needs to be done. Will you follow his instructions?”

“Yeah,” she said, then yawned again. “I’m not sleepy, but the yawns are catching.”

“Be sure to get to sleep when you’re sleepy,” Tae said. Once the pair were gone, Tae chuckled in satisfaction. “Well that was lovely, treating his patient when he was ineffective.”

“You did good,” Chou said.

“Of course,” she said. “You did remind me of someone with your nagging. All well, guess it’ll work out. By the way, I got the accessories I’d like you to test out made.” She brought out a pair of plain bracelets. “These were called Adhesives, although their cling is due to a mild reusable adhesive. This one with the blue stripe is the HP Adhesive, and the red one is the SP adhesive. According to what I read, they slowly restore energy when you wear them in a supernatural realm. Let me know how they work and I’ll see if I can improve them.”

She nodded. “Sure, we’ll give them a try.”

“Now take it easy for this evening.”

While Tae might’ve suggested that, Chou decided to call Kawakami over. She did clean up the litter box after making the call. “Why’re you cleaning up if you just called a maid over?” Morgana asked, watching from the table by the stairs.

“Do you want me to have her take care of this?” she asked back, tying the bag shut.

“Oh, heh, good point.” After a moment, she added, “I could use the proper toilet if I wanted!”

She shrugged. “I don’t doubt that, but we’ve got to keep stray hairs in check, for Sojiro’s sake.”

“Hmm, well we don’t want to get him in trouble.” She sighed. “Man, I wish I was a human. It’d be easier, and more fun!”

“I dunno if it’d be all easier,” she said, rubbing behind Morgana’s ears. “You’re easier to hide as a cat rather than as a human, and it would’ve been harder to convince Sojiro to let me share a room with you.”

“Aw, quit ruining my dreams,” she said. Thankfully, she chuckled when Chou did. “I guess there are advantages to being a cat Like, we couldn’t hang out all the time if I was a human. People would think we were sickening sweethearts sticking together constantly.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Chou asked, making her laugh again.

When Kawakami got upstairs, Chou asked her to clean around her desk. “Of course, Master,” she said, cheer trying to cover up the tiredness in her face. “I know some tricks to keep a laptop clean! Though I’m not sure if you have the things for that. All well, I can bring them next time, right?”

“The laptop is new, but it couldn’t hurt to learn those tricks,” Chou said, then yawned again. Maybe sitting on her bed had reminded her body of that. “Excuse me.”

“Aw, are you tired?” Kawakami asked, still in the cute maid act. She even patted Chou’s shoulder. “I could give you a massage if you’ve had a long day, Master. I’m pretty good at it, meow!”

“Maybe another evening,” she said. “I just took part in a medical trial and the medicine makes me sleepy.”

“How selfless of you,” she said. Then her act slipped a little as she said, “It’s pretty good money along with helping others out. But it takes up quite a lot of time; I’m only able to participate over long breaks, and even then there’s usually some work to do. Hey, is that how you’re able to afford a maid?”

“I have a job too,” Chou said, though it was very easy-going.

“Meow, seems you’re responsible,” she said, being cute again. “Though a little mischievous too in having me around, huh?”

“You’re helping out,” Chou said.

“That makes me purrfectly happy!” Kawakami said, much too cheerful. She cleaned the desk thoroughly, even swept out from underneath it. But once she had that corner of the room swept, she stopped. “Hmm, I suppose shabbiness is a bit of the chic too.”

“So they say,” she said.

She then sighed and plopped down on the couch, letting the broom lean on the desk. “Oh god, I’m so tired today.” Then she yawned too.

“I thought so,” Chou said. Though now that was making her feel more drowsy too.

Kawakami rubbed her own shoulder. “I had to dodge that harpy Chouno after school again; she’s been on the warpath since Kamoshida’s arrest, trying to find who was protecting him. The rumors about the principal lately have made that worse, so I’m sure she’s looking to harass me even though I was the one who brought things up to her first. Then I had to walk a hyper dog, and scrub down a gross bathtub. Please, let’s have a small break… five minutes, maybe ten.” She leaned back and closed her eyes, and soon seemed asleep.

She’d probably get in big trouble if her boss heard she was napping on the job. Though getting to sleep sounded good. Her shoes were already off, so Chou took off her glasses and lay down too. Before long, she too was asleep.

* * *

In Shibuya, Goro spotted a red door that he had noticed before. There was something odd about it. No one was ever around it, for one thing. More than that, it felt like when he looked around Mementos or a Palace. Perhaps it was some kind of distortion? He’d kept away from it so far.

But now? He looked at his phone, the battery indicator low. It had been running out of power fast, so either he needed to replace the battery or the whole phone. While getting a new phone would look good, a new battery might be less hassle. And that was supposedly an electronics shop. The usual phone shop he visited was back down in the underground mall. There couldn’t be any harm in checking it out… though there might be a reason for the lack of customers.

The shop was full of old electronics, nothing that really interested him. There was only one person in the shop, a man in a bright red blazer. He paused in his work at a complicated computer set-up on hearing the bell. “Ah, you’ve finally dropped in. Interesting, good to meet you.”

“Oh, are you a fan?” he asked, acting bashful and surprised. Maybe he could get a discount.

“Sure, it seemed like you were set to win the Game not that long ago,” he said.

The Game? How did he know? “Excuse me?” Goro asked.

“Though this new opponent is going to give you a hard time. It’ll make things fun again, though.”

“How do you know about the Game?” Goro asked, going over to the shopkeeper’s desk. “Are you involved?”

He shook his head. “Nah, not really. I’m a spectator with some bets hanging on the outcome; call me Lars, okay Goro?”

“If you’d like,” Goro said. It was odd that someone was using his first name, but this seemed to be a real fan. “Actually, I came looking to replace a phone battery.”

“That’ll be easy, mundane stuff,” Lars said. “What’s your phone model?”

“Here,” he said, offering the phone itself.

After a quick look, he nodded and went right to a nearby drawer to pull out a battery and tool kit. “This won’t take long. But since you’re a player, I could offer you more than mundane equipment. The battery’s normal, but my specialty gear and apps can work in an alternate realm like the Metaverse. If you can pay the price, you could give yourself a little technological edge.”

“Really? Did you make the Metaverse Navigator?” He’d done well enough so far, and his new rival seemed to be a new player, so he didn’t need anything more. Unless there was something that could make humiliating Shido easier, that would be nice.

“No, but I know how to modify it,” Lars said. “And you might just need a modification if you mean to confront the new players.”

“Who are they?” Goro asked, acting innocent. But knowing a name would be a vital clue at this stage.

“Now now, that wouldn’t be sporting of me to reveal that kind of info,” he said smugly. “But I can reveal, without ruining the fun, that your Navigator and their Navigator work slightly differently. And that slight difference will ensure that you can’t meet up in the Metaverse. You’re running on different tracks that are side by side but will never cross. I can fix that little problem, make sure you can see what’s going on with the other track.”

“And what would that get you?” he asked. On different parallel tracks? What did that even mean?

Lars chuckled at that. “More entertaining showdowns, perhaps. Though this shadow play has its own appeal. It’s up to you, really.”

Did he want this? Or was it some scam? This Lars person knew about the Game and he knew there were new players involved. So he might indeed know how to make electronics work better in the Metaverse. He also seemed like a fan. But then, who was he really? How did he have all this knowledge? And what did this really get him? There was a high chance that he was lying. And Goro had done well enough on his own. Did he really need extra help on a newbie? No.

“Not right now, but thanks for the offer,” Goro said politely. “I’ll keep it in mind if they keep causing me trouble.”

“Fair enough,” Lars said.

“What else do you have that can be used in the Metaverse?” he asked, in case there was something interesting.

“Cameras, walkie-talkies, a few apps,” he said, still working on the battery. “And more if you don’t mind some small side effects.”

The camera might be useful, maybe the apps depending on what they were. But walkie-talkies wouldn’t be as useful since he always worked alone. “I’ll think it over and come back if I feel like it.”

“All right, and there’s your battery replaced,” he said, handing the phone back. His price on the replacement was fair, especially since he did the job right there and then. Goro paid him, gave his thanks, and left.

New possibilities were good to know about, might even make things more interesting. But what kind of electronics would best suit him?

* * *

Sadayo woke herself back up from a light sleep after ten minutes; it was something she was used to doing. She was… in Amamiya’s attic room. And Chou was asleep on her bed, still in her casual clothes. Well, now what? Sadayo pulled out her phone. Still fifteen minutes left in the hour. She could slip out early, or just sit here and rest. She’d already been paid, and there wasn’t another job in her queue tonight. Even with the nap, some more time to relax would be nice.

However, the cat was awake and watching. “Meow?”

“Meow,” Sadayo replied. “I guess since she’s asleep, I can mop in here. As long as it doesn’t bother you.”

“Meow.” Morgana hopped off the table and went to Chou’s bed to watch from there instead.

“That works,” she said, already fitting the cleaning pad to the mop Chou had. These were less work, as well as pretty good at picking up dust and cat hair. But they could be better… she pulled a small bottle she kept in her pocket and sprayed a special oil blend on the cleaning pad. It would be good for this wood floor and leave a nice scent too.

Chou was a good girl, she thought as she mopped the floor under the cat’s supervision. Other customers wouldn’t let her complain and take a nap, even though she shouldn’t be doing that. Now that she thought of it, Sadayo felt embarrassed. But she had been really tired (and was still tired, it’d be nice to head back home after this and sleep). Chou could’ve reported her to the school by now. Instead, she was calling her over and having her do some not actually hard chores. But she seemed to be doing her own cleaning too, given that the table with the TV looked freshly cleaned. Working here was nice too, since there was no awkward or gross flirting to deal with. Nor being treated like dirt, or any form of taking the master-servant thing too far.

Though if Chou was good, why was she calling her over as a maid? Maybe it really was to help her? And she had what people would call a poor attitude for a Japanese girl; she wasn’t afraid to be blunt, didn’t seem to pay attention in class. And there was that time they were talking with the counselors. Sadayo could remember an almost devilish defiance to Chou during that meeting. She wasn’t going to get violent, nor was she going to insult someone.

But she would make them look like a fool, preferably with their own words and actions. Did she have something to do with that rumor exposing the principal’s awfulness? There was that defiance, but she was also kind. She made friends easily and there were the things Mishima had written about her. So she was good, but not someone to cross.

By the time she got the mopping done (through three cleaning pads), it was a few minutes over her allotted time. But there wasn’t another job lined up tonight still. Sadayo went ahead and mopped down the stairs so that wasn’t left incomplete. Then she headed off back home. There was some homework left to grade, and then she might get a few hours of real sleep after.

It might be nice to help Chou out, actually. But there wasn’t time and she had to charge for these services. What should she be doing?

* * *

She had a dream where she was Joker, running and rolling to dodge a barrage of giant spikes flying like arrows. Those flying ahead of her were attached to chains, trying to trip her up or capture her. But they couldn’t catch her. They couldn’t chain her down. Even if they tried, she wouldn’t let them. The spikes kept nearly hitting her coat with loud thunks. Thunk, not yet. Thunk, not yet…

Nine spikes came flying from different directions, poised to pierce through where she was headed for. There was just enough time. Roll off in another direction, nearly get hit but she was still free… but her momentum was slowed. A tenth spike was hurtling right towards her. This was a dream, she could escape… it’d still be close and she felt like she was pushing herself to her limits to escape. Where could she escape from the spikes for good?

“Joker!” A blast of wind exploded around her, throwing off the continuing hail of chained spikes.

She ran for the voice, finding Ace waiting with Zorro. They were in an arched hallway; chained spikes were stuck in the outside, not able to get in. Right as Joker got in, a larger spike than normal blocked them in. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said. Several thunks came from overhead as they were still under attack. “I think we’re dreaming together? Come here, I feel like the other end of this place will be safer.”

“All right,” Joker said, hurrying down the hall. Once the thunks started falling behind them, she felt like she could finally catch her breath.

At the other end of the tunnel, they came upon an unearthly place with stars below them. The floor was made of glass, showing a magic circle glowing underneath. White trees surrounded them, putting a pale canopy overhead. In the center of the opening, there was a strange person dressed in white. Their face was obscured by a gold butterfly mask and she could see through their body at first.

“Welcome,” the strange person said. “I’m glad you could make it here tonight. My name is Philemon; I’ve been watching over you both.”

“So you’re the one who gave me the pin,” Joker said, going closer. The tunnel was disappearing behind them.

“Yes, that was my gift,” they said. “This particular Game has been played in other timelines. I usually keep out of direct interference because it’s not necessary. However, the master of this Game has drawn upon knowledge of other timelines to make things more difficult for you players. The way this timeline is set up, I am in a dangerous position.”

Some things started connecting in her mind. “Is the master of this Game able to affect the will of humanity?” Joker asked.

“Huh?” Ace asked, her tail puffing out in alarm.

Philemon nodded. “That is a way to put it. How did you figure that out?”

“Lala mentioned that you personified the good in humanity,” she said. “And a while ago, Lars mentioned in a roundabout way that you were his rival and the Game’s Master could threaten both of you. There’s not a lot that should be able to threaten beings like you and whoever that Lars is.”

“Excellent deduction,” they said, pleased with that. “But then you see why we’re both worried? And you should see who Lars is.”

“I have a good idea now,” Joker said. “But he did help me.”

Philemon nodded. “It is to his benefit even if giving you an advantage against our common enemy is all he did. Since you have made it here, I have another gift that should help you, in particular Morgana.”

“Really?” Ace asked, having come up by them. “You seem oddly familiar to me, like I should know your scent.”

Philemon chuckled, then crouched down by her to tap her nose. “I have not met you, but I know you quite well. And I know who blessed you with power. Unfortunately, that power was granted without knowledge from other timelines.” They tapped their butterfly mask. “Changes occur in small increments; the difference that has grown has begun to cause problems. Your transformation into a van is not as useful with how the pieces lay. I can make it better suited to the partnership you currently have.”

“That’d be good,” Ace said. “But what’s all this mess with other timelines? Can we make use of knowledge like that?”

“You’d have a difficult time accessing such knowledge,” they said. “There was no transferal; that reduces the impact of paradoxes, but with so many possibilities, it’s difficult to read the history of other lines. Something I can tell you with some certainty is that the pattern indicates that your next target should be Kaneshiro. The Hashimoto couple are not targets in normal patterns.”

“That’s good to know for messing with the Game’s master,” Joker said.

“Be careful in doing so,” Philemon said, making a card appear. They handed it to Ace. “Here is the update to your transformation. It won’t solve how to get up to Kaneshiro’s bank, but if you consider how normal banks work, there are a few ways open to you now. Also, there is something I’d like to request of you two.”

“Sure, what is it?” Ace asked without hesitation, taking the card. It vanished once she looked at it.

“A long time ago, I made a place called the Velvet Room, to help Persona users. We had to limit access to the Room a few decades ago; my followers have been taking care of it, but I knew what they were doing. That is, until a couple of years ago. I’m not sure what happened; I cannot contact any resident of the Velvet Room now, nor can I go in myself. That shouldn’t be happening and it worries me.”

“I can’t get into that place, but Joker can,” Ace said.

She nodded. “I don’t know how it is normally, but I can tell you how it is now. There’s three residents there, Igor, Caroline, and Justine. The latter two are twins; they take care of fusing Personas for me, or executing, they’ve used both terms. On the other hand, they call Igor the master but I don’t know what he does. He’s talked to me sometimes, or scolded me for doing unexpected things. He’s always using vague terms and not explaining himself. Other times, he is asleep or just plain missing. He has the same voice as the one who invited me to the Game, and I thought he was the master of the Game too. I don’t like him.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Philemon said. “The Velvet Room does not work on normal time, so you shouldn’t come upon its residents asleep; they might be missing for their own purposes. More importantly, that doesn’t sound like Igor. Igor is a kind and patient teacher, one who endeavors to help his guests learn about themselves and their world. If the one calling himself Igor matches the Game’s Master, though, you ought to be careful investigating him. I’d like to figure out what’s going on, but not if it costs you too much. Chou, you’re a guest of the Velvet Room, and you can reach me. That makes you our best chance at figuring out what’s going on.”

“I’ll be careful, when I need to be,” she said.


	41. Volleyball Nationals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bonus update cause it's my birthday!

6/4

On the train to school, Chou overheard an argument between an old man and seemingly his son. Not that it was hard to overhear as the old man loudly complained, “That article should have never happened! Those kids must have complained about their principal and teachers when they should respect them! That’s how our society has operated for generations. People do their work, obey the laws, and respect their elders. And no complaining! That’s the sign of a weak heart.”

“You complain all the time, Father.”

“I said no complaining! I’m your elder; I’m the elder of everybody here! I worked hard all of my life and paid my proper respects. I never complained for years, and I never will! But my time to finally be respected is here and I will get respect. But with whiners like those Shujin students as our children, the future of our nation is doomed! It’s going to open the way to demons invading our world again and making hell on Earth!”

“There are no demons,” the son said, sounding weary despite it being morning.

“Don’t ignore things that aren’t convenient to you! The demons will trash you when they return! It took a lot to seal the demons out of our world and I don’t think the weak and whiny children of this world can handle real danger like that.”

“Man, it sounds like somebody’s Shadow talking there,” Morgana said from in Chou’s bag.

“No kidding,” she replied quietly. It was a relief to get out, and not just because of getting away from the old man’s complaints. It was a nice morning; it was the last day of winter uniforms, but a summer uniform would’ve been nice today.

On the way to school, she overheard a pair ahead of her talking. “Hey, did you read the newspaper yesterday?”

“You read the papers?”

“The digital edition. Anyhow, they had a real in-depth story about Kamoshida!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! It didn’t say who the source was, but it must’ve been someone on one of the sports teams because it talked about his harassment of the girls and boys. The most interesting part was that it mentioned how people suspect that the principal and a few other male staff members had protected the coach over the students, even that they wished he was still around.”

“Wow, somebody must’ve talked. But I’m glad they did so that this nonsense wouldn’t stay hushed up.”

There had been people in the train station talking about Ohya’s article too, saying that the mess around Kamoshida was worse than they’d expected. And since she’d narrowed down who could be blamed, the adults on the subway felt that the problem was in the school’s management under Kobayakawa, not the whole school. Good, that was a stronger chance that the principal would get shamed and fired. It was just stubborn people like that one old man who thought the students and victims could still be blamed.

She met up with Haru after school, on gardening committee duties. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to do the greenhouse shopping on my own,” she said, sounding honestly regretful. “My father’s strict in who I associate with and what I do, so he wouldn’t agree to bringing a schoolmate along.”

“That’s unfortunate, but what can we do?” Chou said. Although she thought Haru’s father was being paranoid, it didn’t seem the right time to encourage her to do something about it. “Maybe another time.”

“Maybe,” she said, although she didn’t seem convinced of it. “Do you have any ideas of the kinds of flowers we could plant this summer?”

She did have an idea for that. “How about some native flowers? We were talking about how they need to survive the heat and rain and a native plant should be good for that.”

Haru brightened at that. “Ah, that actually makes good sense! Thanks, I’ll look for those kinds of flowers.”

The volleyball Nationals competition was tonight, but there was still some time. Chou and Morgana headed over to the television station. From her research into Kyoko, Chou had found a detailed blog post she’d written about how she liked her coffee. Inside a nearby cafe that was recommended, she ordered two coffees, one to Kyoko’s specifications. The other she ordered to how Sojiro normally prepared his coffee. There were a lot of additions on the menu, like hazelnut syrup or cocoa powder. For this cafe, that would be preferred as with just the light additions, the coffee’s flavor wasn’t as deep. Despite the lesser coffee, the cafe was full of customers.

Once she was sure of the place, Chou transferred to her layer of the Metaverse and invited Kyoko to join her. When she appeared, Ace guided their guest to the chair with her coffee, then hid under the table. She was dressed as Joker now, so she took a sip of coffee before saying, “Thanks for meeting with me, Kyoko Hashimoto.” She then set the cup down.

“Yes…” she said as her mind sorted out what was happening. She had a Devil arcana, so Joker made sure Succubus was active. “And you are?”

“Ultrablack,” she said, placing both the security card and ring on the table. “I made a deal with your unconscious self, but I need to talk with you about it.”

“A deal?” Kyoko asked, picking up the ring. She got surprised seeing it, then compared it to one on her left hand.

“To correct the blindness caused by idiot male pride,” Joker said, then gestured to the vague people around them. “Don’t worry, we’re in the Metaverse. Nobody will overhear us, so speak freely.”

Chuckling, she set the ring down and checked the card. “I see; you must have spoken with my inner self to know my passion for that cause. Unfortunately, she doesn’t speak to me in exacts, so what is this deal?”

“To move the subliminal suggestion system from your husband’s mind to yours,” she said. “It was placed there by a secretive government committee led by Masayoshi Shido, to placate the masses.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Kyoko said, feeling certain that she was the real Ultrablack.

“I have to pretend at being male to get him to take me seriously,” Joker said, using disdain in her voice. “So I understand your position. Kenzo’s will is weak; your influence over the Metaverse far exceeds his. In fact, your influence impacts him subconsciously already. However, Shido wouldn’t believe either of us if we told him that his plan would be better carried out by a woman. Thus the system is doing nothing at all to the real world.”

She nodded and took a sip of her own coffee before replying. “Exactly. Shido is a brilliant man, one who says that he will bring our nation prosperity. But like so many other men with power, his personality is that of a pig. His prosperity is only going to be for the men he favors, with us women getting an even worse deal than now.”

“I’ve come to realize that,” Joker said. “I’ve also come to realize that moving the system is going to be more difficult than I’d anticipated. Your unconscious self only gave me the ring for asking me to do this. This will cause Shido problems, but what will you do for me in exchange for giving you the power of suggestion?”

“I could make a better offer on that if you’d chosen somewhere more private and intimate,” Kyoko said, smiling sweetly at her.

Taking some cues from Succubus, Joker gave her a small signal to keep hushed even though there were only cognitions (and Ace) around them. “Now I’m sure you’re as much of a knockout in the bedroom as you are here in the cafe; it would be a lovely time. Unfortunately, I cannot compromise my identity and so will have to decline on that offer.”

“Now that’s a pity,” Kyoko said, still pleased by the flattery.

“It is,” she said. “Since your unconscious self gave me your terms, how about I give you mine? I want two things that you could offer. First, any additional information you could give me on the system, the maze protecting it, and how they were set up would be valuable to both of us; it’d make the transfer go quicker.”

“True,” she said, apparently thinking that it was an easy thing to offer.

“And second, I want Shido’s name tarnished.” She tapped the table. “He’s made his record pristine and his image immaculate. But it’s all a lie. People need to be talking about that so that doubt in him spreads.”

“Right,” Kyoko said, seeing how this request benefited her too. “His whole image is a lie. He suggests conspiracies of corrupt politicians to the public when he has made himself the eye of the storm of corruption in the National Diet.” Then she chuckled and pointed to her. “Ah, I see what you’re doing. You’re starting your own conspiracy, aren’t you? By placing the subliminal system in me and having me start a secret campaign of slander, we’ll bring him and other piggish men down without them realizing what’s going on.”

“Well well, you got me,” Joker said, smiling like she was impressed. “It’s a small conspiracy now; you’d be my first major partner. But I’ve already got an in with Shido’s circle. It’s a precarious position, which is why I’m looking for intelligent and clever women who also want to change the status quo.”

“I’m honored that you’d think to invite me in early,” she said, her pride satisfied. “This sounds like a fair deal, so keep this ring as a sign of my agreement. You’d know more about how this Metaverse business works, but from what I understand, if you wear this ring when dealing with my unconscious self, you should be in no danger. Meanwhile, I’ll start spreading the bad word about Shido. I can’t do that openly either, but I know people who will talk and what indirect things will cause him problems. I’ll get right on that.”

“Good,” Joker said.

They then discussed how the maze was set up and the kind of passwords that should get them into the security systems. Kyoko spoke disdainfully of her husband, feeling like his passwords would have something to do with his obsession with the Goodkin Kids. And on her phone, she had a copy of the maze they had consciously designed to implant subconsciously through hypnosis. Joker took a copy of that for her phone to make that part easier. She then ended the conversation by having Kyoko pick up her drink before sending her away. The cup vanished with her, so she should come alert back in the office with the coffee in hand.

However, the two Palaces could wait. Chou did some studying in the cafe; all of her classes were now on new material, or at least things she wanted to review well for exams. Once the time was right, she left for the train station to get a ride over to the Nationals games. They were being held at a university gym, giving plenty of seating for the crowds that were coming in. Chou sent a text to find out that Ann and Ryuji had already gotten seats. On learning where they were, she offered to buy them some things from the snack stand, mostly because she’d not eaten anything since lunch.

Ann had a handmade sign cheering on the Shujin teams while Ryuji had a pair of flags. He gave her one of the flags once she handed over the snacks. “Thanks, I’m sure it’ll get busy in a little while,” he said.

“It was already busy,” Chou said, setting the flag by her drink. “Which teams are going first?”

“The girls,” Ann said. “Their opponents are from different schools.”

Chou had never been a big fan of sports; knowing a bit about them and being willing to listen to a fan ramble were ways to get on a person’s good side. But it was just another game, one she felt neutral about. Still, there was something exciting to being in a huge crowd, surrounded by their spirit and cheer. All of the teams were intensely focused, giving their all to win. From the way the points kept going back and forth along with the deafening cheers, they must’ve been nail-biters of a match. The Shujin boys lost by just a point, while the Shujin girls won by just three points.

Morgana had come out of the bag to sit on the armrest of Chou’s chair. “I have no idea what happened, but that was pretty exciting,” she said.

“I agree on both points,” Chou said, leaning close to her.

After the awards ceremony, they went to say a quick congratulations to Shiho and Yuuki (Ann did so by giving Shiho a big hug). They both looked tired and excited. Celebrations were already planned for later, so they split up for the evening. For herself, Chou took Morgana over to Shibuya, to meet up with Iwai.

She put the nine-inch nail on the counter for him. “I got this for you.”

“So you did,” he said, picking it up to examine. After a moment, he nodded and gripped it near the head. “Yup, this is the nail. Supposedly it works based on a ritual curse, using dark magic to potentially kill the victim.”

“Like a voodoo doll?” Chou asked.

Iwai nodded. “Different culture, same idea. You can actually use this with an effigy if you really wanted. Then again, it’s also a damn big nail and that alone could kill.”

“The curse would make that death more nasty,” she pointed out.

“Or if this was rusty.” He crouched down to set the nail in a drawer behind the counter. “Thanks for getting that.”

“You gonna curse somebody to death with that?” Chou asked.

The question amused him. “I could, but no. It’s for a researcher I know. Here’s payment for that; he’d like an Angel Feather too, so get one of those now. Also, do you have some time tonight? I’ll show you how these models go together.”

“Sure, sounds more fun than what I did earlier,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, going to open up a panel to let her behind the counter. “What’s that?”

“Watching a volleyball match. A couple of friends of mine are on the team, so I was supporting them although I don’t like sports.”

“Seems like a good thing to do. Come back here, we can work at the counter.”

Iwai gave her a model pistol that was different from the one she was using. Despite being a model, it had a lot of interior parts in the box. He talked about practical advice on removing the parts and smoothing out the plastic nubs, but also about what the parts would do in a real gun. He even pulled out a completed model to show her; the casing could be taken apart to show the interior detail, giving her a preview on what the assembly process would be and an idea of how the real thing worked.

“Did you use a real gun in your demon fighting days?” she asked.

“You could say that,” Iwai replied, Third Eye hinting that it was true but not the whole story. “Maybe you’ll never handle a real one, but if knowing about a thing makes it easier to imitate using one, you might as well learn what you can.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Chou said, getting interrupted by the shop’s bell.

A pair of police officers walked in, one carrying a briefcase. “Munehise Iwai?” one of them asked.

“Yes, what is it?” Iwai asked, acting gruff and unconcerned.

“We’ve gotten some reports that you may be holding weapons here,” the officer said. “Again.”

“And I’m sure you’ll find the same as last time, just models,” Iwai said. “You in here for something else this time?”

“Actually, yes, about some of your old contacts and the mafia running around here lately,” he said.

He shrugged at that. “You know that I cut off ties with those people years ago. I wouldn’t know what they’re up to.”

“I know, but there’s something unusual to your business going unmolested.”

“And what are you doing here, miss?” the other officer asked, more aggressive than the other. That got him a silent rebuke. “Err, it is an unusual place for a girl.”

“Maybe I’m an unusual girl,” she said. “Iwai-san’s showing me how to make models better, but he’s only got these ones around. It’ll help make my cute models nicer.”

“Right, that’s all,” Iwai said, then patted her shoulder. “This could take a while, so you ought to head home.”

“All right, see you another evening,” she said, putting the model pieces into the box to set aside on a shelf. Interesting; would he know something about Kaneshiro’s mafia despite what he told the officer? She’d have to press him next time.

She hadn’t gotten to work much on the model gun, so she spent the evening with Morgana putting together some of their tools to make sure they had a good supply for training.

* * *

6/5

After spending the morning doing laundry and other chores, Chou and Morgana headed out to Shibuya to do a few more requests in Mementos. They had a rough fight against a stalking girl who was posting a yandere blog about another student in Shujin; her Shadow had turned into a giant teddy bear with sharp teeth in a vertical mouth on its stomach and mismatched bloody button eyes. But with that fight, Arsene learned Enduring Will; it was a way for them to resist falling unconscious more reliably. Good, she should be able to progress with the request for the twins.

They told the girl to calm down and stop her stalking behaviors. Once her Shadow had returned and the Treasure was claimed, Joker could look around this small level better. “It seems like another station,” she said.

“It really is,” Ace said, although her attention was on an archway overhead.

It was a massive station, but unlike Shibuya. They were on a platform between two rail lines; trains had passed them going in both directions while they’d been fighting the Shadow. Past each of the lines, there were other platforms flanked by other lines. How many were here? Joker couldn’t quite tell as everything faded into darkness past three lines. Lights from passing trains still zoomed by in the distance. There were odd structures around too, like the archway and dark pipes that ran across the ceiling.

Ace pointed up at the arch. “I remember seeing that, and other arches like it. It’s a boundary line, I think. When we go past it, we’ll be in a deeper area of Mementos. The Shadows will get stronger and the mentalscape will get stranger.” She then put her paw on her chin. “I… I was going the other way, hurrying to do something.”

“To find help for your parent?” Joker suggested.

After a moment, she nodded. “Yeah, that sounds right. So they’re down here, I think. But deeper in, far deeper past several archways. It’s gonna be a tough rescue, I’m pretty sure.”

“But if the Shadows get stronger, we’ll get stronger fighting against them,” Joker said. “We should be strong enough when we find them.”

Ace smiled. “Yeah, I hope so! Shall we keep going?”

“In a bit, I’d like to go fuse a few Personas,” she said.

“Sure, that’s important too.”

The entrance to the Velvet Room was all the way back at the entrance to Mementos. Justine was there waiting. “Oh, you are here,” she said. “The Master is out again, but we can take care of any business you have there.”

“What’s he out for?” Joker asked.

“That’s not a question we should ask,” she said, although she did seem a little bothered. “Never mind that, please come in.”

While Chou wasn’t sure if she was much stronger as Joker, Justine and Caroline did allow her to execute Mokoi and Reagent to acquire Matador with Magaru just as they’d asked. He was dressed as she’d seen matadors before. However, this one was a skeleton, one who cackled when she met his gaze. “Well done, now let’s make a bloodbath of your enemies.” He then fused into her mask.

“Ah, you’ve fulfilled another of our requests,” Justine said, checking the list. “This one seems dangerous, but he should serve you well.”

“Pfft.” Caroline wasn’t as impressed. “Maybe, ‘seems’ would be the right word for it. But he’s nothing compared to other Personas out there.”

Matador then appeared in the cell with Chou and whacked the bars to startle the twins. “Shut your damn mouth, unless you want a taste of my power!”

“We’ve got nothing to fear from you,” Caroline said, glaring up at him.

Justine looked at her twin a moment, then shrugged and looked back to Chou. “What does this execution teach you?”

“This is what fusions with Treasure demons should do,” Chou said. “Also just how much power they can get from Confidants; he’s a Death arcana Persona and I have been helping out Dr. Takemi for a while now. Unless I fuse a Chariot or Lovers Persona too, he could be the strongest Persona I have for now.”

“That is correct,” Justine said. In the meantime, Caroline stuck her tongue out at Matador. He sniffed at that and shook his head. “I have to wonder, though, why Magaru?”

“That’s Mazan, missy,” Matador insisted, “at least where I come from. It had to be there if you wanted me specifically, not a Matador from another world.”

“Well what’s so special about you?” Caroline asked, tapping her baton on her shoulder.

“I was called upon to test and train a hero of destruction,” he said proudly. “Humans have a lot of potential. Most of them utterly waste that potential, but if you mold them right, they can be a better destroyer than any demon. Sometimes, that’s the hero the world needs.”

“I’m not a destroyer,” Chou said. “I’m a Trickster.”

Matador shrugged at that. “Your spirit falls more on Chaos than Law, so that suits me.”

“Well that is what you’d want out of a Trickster,” Caroline said. “We’re supposed to help her use her potential at its best.”

“Then we have similar roles in different worlds,” Matador said. “At least I’m not a little brat.”

“Hey!” Caroline glared at him again.

Matador chuckled this time. “I am someone who is feared.”

“They’ve got the power to be feared if they wanted to use it,” Chou said.

“Are you sure of that?” Justine asked, puzzled.

Nodding, she said, “Quite sure.”

“I don’t believe that would suit our purpose,” Justine said, writing something on her paper. There was a little smile on her face. “But I will make note of that.”

“Sometimes an unexpected strength is more fearsome,” Matador said, leaving it at that while he vanished.

“Well he’s under your control now, so it’s your responsibility to keep him in line,” Caroline said. “What’s next?”

“Are you anticipating her success?” Justine asked, looking to her curiously.

“N-no,” she said, although the denial was some kind of lie. “That’s the responsibility she took on when she agreed to help.”

“Hmm, we are to support her, so it’s not bad to hope for her success,” Justine said. “Now, the next task… we’d like to see a Flauros with Tarukaja.”

“All right, I’ll get on that,” Chou said.

The name sounded familiar; she checked the list for the group guillotine and found him listed there. It needed Andras and Berith, two Personas she’d used before. And… Eligor, one that she’d not used. According to the compendium records, Andras had the required Tarukaja, and she probably wasn’t strong enough to summon Flauros yet. In that case, she just needed to get Eligor and keep training. One of her executions did get her Eligor, so she was prepared with the Personas at least.

Once she was done fusing for now, she headed back with Ace to the platform level. They passed through the arch to get to the next staircase down. It was a particularly dark staircase, smelling like damp dirt. A cool wind followed them down. By the time they got to the next area, the wind was making a soft constant sound around them. The concrete on the ground was stained and worn; the walls were made up of packed dirt and organic looking dark pipes. The rails were dull and worn too.

Ace’s new transformation was to turn into a motorcycle with a sidecar, something that was quicker to get through the tunnels with. It took learning a new vehicle and wasn’t as safe as the van, but Joker was soon taking turns smoother and racing past some Shadows. If something odd happened, the sidecar could be useful for taking someone else along. Plus the motorcycle was more fun to drive, for the both of them.

The Shadows down here were stronger. The normal ones around were those that had been in recent Palaces: Sudama, Shiki-ouji, Nekomata, Shiisha, Principality. Because they were stronger, they also had more money than the previous area. They didn’t have any more targets down here today, but it was certainly not wasted time. Of course, this didn’t take time in the real world. When they found a safe area and could leave, it was still before noon in Shibuya.

It felt like it should be mid-afternoon to Chou. She stopped by the juice stand to check on the aojiru. This week, it was blended with fish oil, seaweed, and some other berries for a mental health boost. Thankfully, the berries blocked off the taste of the fish oil. She picked up a sandwich at the little bakery in the station, then considered what to do for the afternoon. She could study and get ahead of classes again. Or, what were her friends doing?

As she was considering who to check with, she got a text from Ann. ‘Hey, mind if I come over to your place?’

Chou: No problem, what’s up?

Ann: I have a project I want to finish today, but the housekeeper is over doing a major cleaning.

Chou: My room’s a bit dusty as always, but if you don’t mind that, it’s fine by me.

Ann: Great, I’ll meet you there then!

With that planned, Chou caught the next train back to Yongen-Jaya. She picked up some chips to snack on from the grocery store, let Sojiro know that Ann was coming by, then made sure things were neat in her room. While there wasn’t a large table, there was a board and some milk crates that made a makeshift table. Morgana was napping on the bed when Ann came up with posters, craft supplies, her own snacks, and Shiho. “Hey, thanks for letting us do this,” she said, a large smile on her face.

“It’s fine, I was just gonna chill today,” she said. “What’re you doing?”

“Making some posters to put up around school celebrating the girls winning Nationals,” Ann said, taking out a partially made poster to set on the table. “A group of us will decorate the school early in the morning for them; we’ve gotten permission from the teachers already.”

“I was going to chill too, after yesterday,” Shiho said, taking a seat on the couch by the TV. “So I’ll just hang out if you two don’t mind.”

“That’s all fine, it’ll be fun,” Chou said. “I could help you out with the posters if you want.”

“Sure, are you neat with lettering?” Ann asked, taking out another poster to pass over.

“That’s easy.” She took a pencil to plan out a layout.

“Great, that’s a relief,” Ann said. “We wanted to have a poster listing the students involved in the teams to recognize them all. But of those of us working on this, nobody felt confidant in getting a list neatly on a poster. So would you handle that?”

“No problem, I’ve got it,” Chou said, taking out her phone to bring back up the list of team members.

“So what was your other news?” Shiho asked, looking at Ann.

She beamed on being asked. “Oh yeah! My parents are coming back home for a little while! It’s for one of their shows, but I like participating in those and they made sure to take a few extra days just to be home.”

“That’s great,” Shiho said, happy for her. “You can show them that you’re going to be a serious model now.”

“Well not too serious but yeah,” Ann said. “It’ll be good to see them again. Hey, are your parents giving you an easier time now?”

Shiho nodded. “Yeah, they’ve been pretty nice to me lately; they regret not believing me. They took me out to a nice sushi place yesterday after the games were over.”

“That’s great, I’m glad you’re getting along now,” Ann said.

“Yeah, but it’s kind of like living in a different world now,” Shiho said, sounding concerned about it. “If that makes any sense. We were all wrapped up in our own lives; it seemed like a long time since we got to spend much time together. But now they want to talk, about how our days went and how things are going. It’s nice how things have returned to being that way, it just feels a bit weird.”

“How’s that weird?” Ann asked, worried but also puzzled.

“Is it because it seems too good to be true?” Chou asked. It would feel weird to her if her own parents suddenly became nice and warm after years of being strict or indifferent. It’d be good, but very weird.

“Yeah,” Shiho said. “I hope it can last, but I get scared that it won’t.”

Ann said, “Well if they’re talking now, maybe you can keep talking to them so it doesn’t return to the old ways? It’d be sad otherwise.”

“Maybe,” Shiho said. “Though really, you talk with your parents about as much as I did with mine. You should try to connect with them.”

“That’ll be tough,” Ann said.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Chou said, feeling like she wanted to be positive about this.

“Yeah, thanks guys,” Ann said, smiling again. “I’ll talk with them when they’re back; there’s lots of things that I’ve wanted to tell them about.”

She and Ann kept working while Shiho relaxed and joked around. Once they were done with the posters, Chou agreed to come by school early to help with setting the celebratory decor up. They then headed out to the train station to get to Shibuya; Ann and Shiho split up to go home and Chou stuck around to help out Yoshida with his speech that evening. His topic that evening was about how small changes the government could make today (as guided by the will of active voters) would lead to the large changes that were necessary to make a better country for all.

While it was a good argument towards voters and councilmen being responsible, there were even fewer people listening today. Only one man stuck around for the entire speech while others came and went. The week’s heckler asked why he didn’t get an attractive female assistant. She did her best to stay calm. But behind the sign, Chou rolled her eyes at the crude comment.

The one listener stuck around when the speech ended, although Yoshida didn’t notice him right away. “Are you bothered, after that crude comment?” he asked instead.

“Nah, he has no taste,” Chou said jokingly. “Though seriously, I wouldn’t want to detract from your message.”

It did get a chuckle out of him. “Yes, such distractions are disingenuous. You did well to keep cool in response to that comment. It was a small crowd tonight, but I hope they remember the message.”

“It was good,” the one man said. He was dressed in a suit like any other business man. However, he was quite a muscular man and would stand out among other suited men. “But that’s the kind of message you send out when you’ve got attention on you; you’ve got to secure your votes first or that message falls on deaf ears.”

Yoshida looked surprised; maybe he’d seen him but not recognized him while speaking. “Oh, Matsushita? It’s been a while! How have you been doing?”

“Good but busy, as usual. And you? I’ve heard that you’ve been working hard, though not that you’d picked up an assistant.” He seemed curious about her as well as friendly; Chou didn’t think he’d be a bad guy.

“No, Amamiya here is a student volunteer,” Yoshida said. “And this is Councilman Matsushita, a current member of the Diet and another member of the original Kuromoto Children.”

“Did he tell you about that?” Matsushita said. Once she nodded, he smiled nostalgically. “That was quite a learning experience back in the day; I myself had made an incredible career change out of it, going from a pro wrestler to a politician!”

“You look like you still wrestle,” Chou said.

Laughing at that, he said, “Not professionally anymore, but I do still keep in shape. But when I failed to get reelected, I realized that I hadn’t been given power out of my own merit. Most of us didn’t make it to a second term then, finding our seats going back to the old crew or their chosen replacements.”

“But you’ve made an excellent comeback,” Yoshida said, encouraging him despite the criticism at first. “I hear good things about you, like you’re a hard worker but someone to watch out for in debates.”

“But nobody’s been working harder than you,” Matsushita said, impressed with him. “Still, you should tell the voters what they want to hear so they back you. All that work will end up for naught if you don’t get the power to enact change.”

“Such words are meaningless without political integrity!” Yoshida said in an intense tone. But through Third Eye, Chou saw no conflict here. This was some kind of game to both men, debates where they still had respect for each other. “Using hypocrisy and promises that can’t be kept will only undermine the belief of voters further. We must live our message as much as speak it.”

“Well I can’t really argue against a philosophy I believe in too.” They both chuckled, before Matsushita continued on, “Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened in on your bombastic speeches. Miss, you’re lucky to have him as your teacher; he knows a lot of the ins and outs about politics. But I’d recommend doing as he says and not as he does.”

“He is great, but it’s not just his speaking skills,” Chou said. “He’s sincere and determined. That kind of integrity is unfortunately rare.”

“R-really?” Yoshida said, surprised that she felt that way.

“Seems that way,” she said. “I’ve dealt with some people lately who knew how to be popular, but they were completely insincere. It was disappointing.”

Matsushita seemed impressed too. “You’re quite perceptive. That’s refreshing. In the political world, I’ve met a lot of people who treat words like sincerity and integrity as buzzwords devoid of meaning. But you must believe in them, like he does.”

Yoshida nodded. “And they’re often words that they’re advised to use rather than words they’d use themselves. It makes people believe that all politicians use empty words.”

“That’s partly why I’d like to see you back in the Diet,” Matsushita said. “But seriously, you need to change something or people will keep writing you off. I actually has some ideas that I’d like to discuss with you, later on.”

“As long as it’s nothing out of line,” he said. “You know how quickly people can blow things up into a scandal.”

“Of course. But just to start with, when that scandal broke out over the missing party funds back in the day, I wasn’t the one to point fingers at you. There was a lot more going on than we realized.” Nodding, he said, “Good evening; I’ll stop by again.”

Once Matsushita was away in the crowd, Yoshida sighed and put his hand on his forehead. “Did he have to bring that up?”

“He seemed like he was on your side too,” Chou said, hoping that encouraged him.

“I hope so,” he said, thinking it over. “But when it comes to positions with power, there is still some doubt about his intentions. Helping others is often a way to help oneself. But if it’s done properly, it should be of equal benefit.” After another moment, he shrugged. “It’s something to keep in mind. But thank you for your kind words; you have a way of cheering me up even though I’m supposed to be guiding you.”

“I’m still learning a lot from you,” she said with a smile.

“Good, then we have a deal of equal benefits,” Yoshida said, smiling back. “That’ll be it tonight; I’ll see you next week?”

“Mostly likely, I’ll let you know,” she said.


	42. The Lovers

???

While he was too old to say so aloud, acting was a game of pretend that never ended and he loved it. He could pretend being the popular kid, an ace at sports and classes. Or he could pretend to be the nerdy outsider, fully wrapped up in hobbies and stories. Or he could pretend to be a space age hero of a distant galaxy, diving through the depths of a mysterious space station; that had been a great show to be a voice actor for. He might make the move to become a full voice actor, not a studio actor. It gave more creative and amazing roles… and would be out of this hellish television culture where acting skills alone were not enough to survive as a star.

It had been amazing to get accepted at the same studio as Kyoko Hashimoto, a wonder of the screen who could play a variety of roles. Her most popular roles were those of sweet girl-next-door types that struggled between a Japanese properness and a growing passion. In real life, though, she was a dark femme fatale that would force her way by soft and hard means. He remembered feeling something wasn’t right, then waking up to realize she was close without him remembering why. Other times, he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak; it all felt so wrong.

Though he didn’t remember her having glowing yellow eyes. “Come on, my pet, relax and listen to your body. It’s good, isn’t it? Once you break the chains of modesty, so much more opens up to you.” It’s what he remembered her saying, although he didn’t remember her adding, “See, sex isn’t about pleasure. Sex is about power. The one who takes control is in power and gets the enjoyment. So learn, little boy, about how to use power for your own. If you’re too afraid, just take the pills and relax. You’ll get a taste for it all.”

He didn’t want to; this should be wrong. But according to the directors, Kyoko, and other staff, show business was like this everywhere. It was standard favors, nothing to complain about. Was it really? He had tried to complain, to the head producer Kenzo Hashimoto. He held back on saying Kyoko was involved, seeing how he took the initial word.

It didn’t go well; Kenzo was unconcerned, even irritated at the complaint. “Look, I don’t care what you do with your private life, just make sure it stays private,” he said, hitting his desk. His yellow eyes (again?) narrowed as he added, “It’s getting bothersome to have to edit your blog with every entry; you need to have a certain image, one of a good clean life, one of positivity and energy. Good grief, why do I have to deal with all you deviants and your toxic little culture? Is it some sickness that comes with letting stardom get to your head?”

He was taking the drugs to black out of a lot of these awful situations; he knew that but didn’t care. It had worked so well the first time. But, what was going wrong now? Why was he in this nightmare? He felt disconnected from himself. Unsure of who he even was. He remembered his games of pretend, the roles and scripts he’d been given. But not who he himself was. Was he even anybody?

What could he even do?

“Not what being a star should be, hmm?”

“No,” he said, finding himself in a used electronics store. The store owner was also one of the strange yellow-eyed people, dressed in a red suit. “Why am I here?”

“I invited you,” the shopkeeper said. “I want to let you get revenge on those who hurt you. To do this, I’ll give you a power they don’t know about.”

“Power?” That worried him. At the same time, he would like a way to get back at all them for ruining his dreams.

“Don’t worry, lost soul. Just do what you feel like.”

Lost soul? Before he could as what that meant, he could feel his anger growing… and changing…

* * *

6/6

The summer uniform was a simple shirt and skirt, similar to the winter uniform minus the blazer. Chou had to pin the butterfly pin to the shirt now, but it looked nice next to her second year pin. With that, her uniform was a little different even though it would look standard on a casual glance. She took an early train to help Ann and the others with putting up the celebratory posters.

While working in the entryway, another pair of girls in the hall were talking. “Hey, what’s got you so blue? We’ve finally got summer uniforms on again!”

“Of course I’m blue,” her friend said. “Didn’t you hear about Toya? The really hot guy on River Street Blues? He died Saturday night.”

“Whaaat, really? No, I hadn’t heard; that’s terrible! He was the best part of that drama!”

“I know, he was my favorite actor! He could’ve gotten really big as a star, as he was so handsome and talented. And get this: people are suspecting that it might’ve been a suicide.”

“Wow… I’d say that was crazy, but weren’t some strange things showing up in his blog? But they’d always get replaced by more upbeat posts in an hour or two.”

“Yeah, I was getting worried, but I didn’t know it could be so bad! But whatever happened had to be bad; he didn’t deserve to die so soon.”

Was that gossip related to the Hashimotos? Chou wasn’t sure; she didn’t watch TV much lately. More important to her was that Ann had an odd look on her face now. “Something up?” Chou asked quietly, while the other two didn’t care how noisy they were.

“Oh, uh, I dunno?” she said, going back to hanging crepe paper. “Just hearing those two over there, well…”

“It’s hard not to overhear them,” Chou said.

Ann smiled a bit, relaxing. “Right.”

“I don’t recall seeing that show myself,” Chou said, taking out a marker to fix up the lettering on a sign someone else had made.

“I’ve heard of it, and I think I’ve seen the actor before,” Ann said. “It’s on Tokyo Two, you now, the TV station we’re visiting later this week.”

Then this was relevant, perhaps even that young man she’d seen in Kyoko’s Palace. It stung that a victim had died before she’d taken care of the Palaces. And if they were changing his blog before he died, then the studio would surely keep anything related to him hushed up. “Ah… it’s sad hearing about a potential suicide from anybody, not just an actor.”

Nodding, she said, “Yeah. And it makes me feel, well, kind of odd too. Like I’ve known someone who committed suicide before. But I haven’t, at least not that I’ve heard. I still feel like, I dunno, I’m reminded of a deep sadness anyhow?”

Hearing that, Chou thought of occasions when Shiho mentioned about how she felt like something was off. And there was something going on about alternate time lines, and… the advice had been not to think too much on paradoxes, right? Because getting hung up on them would make such potential paradoxes real problems.

It was better, whether she considered paradoxes or not, to cheer her up. “Don’t you feel sad because you’re a really kind person who cares a lot about others, even if you don’t know them?”

“Uh,” she blushed and tried to brush it off with a nervous chuckle. “I guess so? I mean, I do feel bad for other people suffering, even if they’re not nice to me. Even people like Mika.” Ann frowned at the thought. “Oh my gosh, Mika… I had one of those last minute job calls earlier this week because somebody else canceled.”

“And she was there?” Chou asked.

Ann sighed. “Yes, she was. It was a catalog shoot, see? So there were several of us, including some younger girls. Mika was just an awful monster the whole time! She whined and gave puppy dog eyes when things weren’t to her liking, like how the make-up they were using wasn’t natural mineral-based or whatever. But behind the staff’s backs, she bullied the rest of us and made a couple of the middle schoolers cry. I was able to reassure them, but it felt like the whole time, I was putting out fires that she was starting for no good reason. Not literally, of course.”

“Words are just as damaging, or even more,” Chou said.

“Right,” Ann said, feeling more confidant about it. “It’s one of the things the Heart of a Survivor group teaches, so I had some things I could pass along to the other girls to help them. By the middle of the shoot, even the staff was getting tired of her antics. The company representative asked them for the cover photo about then. And he thought Mika was a good one to include, because she was a ‘good example of a Japanese girl’, or so he said.” She made air quotes at that wording and rolled her eyes.

“Was it because she’d sweet-talked him into it beforehand?” Chou guessed.

“Exactly, just like she was doing at the Sky Tower shoot! And she thought it’d be a solo photo.” Then she shook her head. “That’s not standard for the industry. They like group shots for images of harmony and happiness, along with more chances to show off their goods. So when she said that about a solo, the representative hesitated before saying that he wanted it done then because the models in middle school are limited in how many hours they can work, and he wanted a couple of them along with a big sister type high schooler.”

Chou nodded, as it made sense. “It’d be a good image for their brand.”

Ann seemed happier that she noticed. “Yup, that’s a nice friendly image for a catalog! As it turned out, the middle schoolers he wanted were the ones that Mika had made cry. They weren’t sure since they’d been told to do as the managers say, but they replied that they didn’t want to work with Mika. But they did want to work with me, since I seemed like a great big sis.” Ann then fiddled with one of her ponytails. “Uh, but I’m an only child, so I’m not really a big sis?”

“You’d be an amazing big sis to girls like those,” Chou said.

“Well I hope so,” she said, beaming now. “I don’t look Japanese, but the representative agreed since the girls asked for me. Mika tried fake crying again and got told to keep out of the way. For the rest of the shoot, she was in a foul mood; she kept trying to show up the rest of us who stayed the whole time and would snap harsh barbs if she was safe. When it was over and the both of us went to the train station to leave, she was forcefully ignoring me.”

Mika seemed like the kind of bitch that should be ignored just as much. However, that didn’t seem like something Ann would like hearing. Instead, she said, “There has to be some reason she’s so awful. People aren’t just naturally like that.”

“I wonder what happened to her,” Ann said. “Though I probably won’t get to learn that, huh? Anyhow, at the station, there was this creep who recognized her from the mens magazine story. She used her fake sweetness act on realizing he was a fan, at least until he made a grab to grope her. I tried to startle him out of it, to help her out. But she straight up told him that he was a trashy creep and she hoped he died. Like, he was trash, but telling someone to die is too much. She’d have done much better to go to one of the security guards, or even the staff around the train station.”

“Or even just stop at the trash part,” she said. “She’s got one hell of a death glare.”

Ann laughed. “Doesn’t she? But once he was gone, I told her that seemed like a scary moment. You know, reassure her that she wasn’t alone in being harassed like that. But then she said, ‘That was so aggravating. Like, my body is not something he gets for free. He’d have to have diamonds and lots of money.’ Like, it made me wonder if Mika was just crazy? How could she think like that after nearly getting grabbed?”

“She’s got a distorted set of priorities,” Chou said, wondering how warped Mika’s Shadow would be in the Metaverse. Was it worth looking into?

“Really,” she agreed. “And after that, she said I was dumb for looking so blank-faced at that since I was destined to become some rich bastard’s trophy wife. I’m not that dumb, but what brought that on?” She shrugged and reached up to put another piece of tape on her crepe paper line.

Strangely, she was moving very slowly. The other two gossiping girls in the hall were gossiping still, but their words slowed down nearly to a halt. Right as Chou wondered what was happening, she heard what seemed like her own voice from nearby. “You know, after those compliments earlier and her general mood, you could start flirting with her now.”

“What?” Chou asked quietly.

It was a ghostly figure of herself with yellow eyes; it didn’t feel like one of the demons, though. She was more like one of her other selves from the tutorial. “Maybe not this morning, but put the bait out now and you could hook her as a girlfriend after school. Give her some time to think on it, get into the idea. You just need to say the right things now.”

Maybe this was one of those selves. “I don’t know.”

“Hey…” her other self said, annoyed at the hesitation.

“I know, I promised,” Chou said. “But you know, I think both Shiho and Ryuji might have a thing for Ann too. It doesn’t have to be only now, right? Because if things change later, her being positive enough about me to consider that now means I could get a date with her later if I want.”

“I suppose that’s true,” the other self said.

Chou shrugged. “And I don’t know, I don’t feel that strongly yet. I’ve seen it in other people, but I’ve not had a crush for more than a couple of hours, not like other people have had a crush on me for weeks. So I don’t want to jump in right now with the first possibility. I don’t even think Ann has much of a crush on me, not like Yuuki. He could be a problem if I started dating someone else.”

“True, just don’t be too cautious and forget the promise,” her other self said. She then disappeared and let time flow normally again.

It took a moment for Chou to recall where the conversation had been. “Does she really have that negative of a view of the world?”

“She might be trying too hard, I think,” Ann said. “I’ve seen it with another model before; she got obsessed with keeping in perfect condition and would snap at the littlest criticisms. Actually, it’s easy to fall into that trap of being an ideal beauty. Like, I don’t have black hair and my Caucasian genes show strongly, so there’s no way I fit the ideal of a Japanese beauty. But I’ve got to work with my body instead of against it. Be my own beauty instead of someone else’s.”

“That’s a mature outlook,” Chou said.

She got a little embarrassed, but not enough to take it as flirtation. “Oh, well, that’s something my dance instructor says. But it is really wise and mature, isn’t it? I’m keeping it in mind now, especially when things bother me.”

Unfortunately, the door nearby opened and the principal walked out. He looked around in surprise, then yelled, “Hey, what are you all putting up? There’s no reason for this!”

“There’s a really good reason for this,” Ann said back while the other two girls were unsure. “We’re celebrating the victory of the girls volleyball team at Nationals! As well as the boys for getting there; they all worked really hard for that recognition.”

“We got permission from five different teachers as well as the student council,” Chou added, hoping he couldn’t use lack of permission to get them in trouble.

“Well I heard nothing about this,” the principal said, acting angry. But Third Eye showed an insecurity under there, a fear that the rug was getting pulled out from under him. “Students will think there’s less restrictions today and it will all end up in a bigger mess than we’re already in. We have to keep order.”

“But we’re just congratulating them,” one of the other girls said nervously.

“Yeah, shouldn’t you be doing the same?” Ann asked, a confidant poise in her. Maybe she saw the insecurity too and wasn’t going to let him get away with throwing his weight around. “You were telling everybody in March that the Nationals trophy for volleyball was assuredly ours this year too.”

“But that was…” he stopped himself before saying something dumb.

It shouldn’t be hard to get him to back down, Chou thought. “Are you putting your reputation ahead of your responsibilities towards us as your students?” she asked. “You keep saying that you want the school to be peaceful and safe, but your accusations about threats to that are all put on students.”

Ann nodded. “Right, you keep telling us to keep quiet rather than listening to us. And I would know! I tried to get help, but all the staff at the time said that I should just follow your orders and not complain. That was part of why students kept ending up at the hospital, and you just told people to keep quiet and not make a fuss.”

“We’re doing something to make others happy and show admiration for a job well done,” Chou said. “Would you like to be known as the one who stopped that?”

“If you all hadn’t made a fuss, the school wouldn’t be in the trouble it’s in right now,” the principal said, trying to turn it on them.

“Excuse me?!” Ann snapped, stomping her foot down. Chou took her shoulder to nudge her to keep her temper.

“Principal Kobayakawa,” someone said from the office, coming to the door but not past it where they could see them. “That is a very callous thing to say, that a victim speaking up for themselves is merely making a fuss. This kind of thing is exactly why this inquiry came up.”

“B-but,” he said, sweating more from the pressure.

“Now do you care about your students as their educator or not? Let them have their celebration; the teams have earned it.”

“Fine, but you all had best take them down in a timely manner,” the principal said.

“Thank you,” Ann said tersely, going back to hanging the crepe paper. Once he moved on with whatever chore he had, she took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said quietly.

“No need to be sorry when he deserved it,” Chou said quietly back.

“Eh-heh, sometimes it is deserved,” she said. “You know, you’ve helped me out a lot, whether in supporting me or just hanging out when I was bored. Thanks; I wish I could do more for you.”

“It’s fine, I’ve learned some things from you,” she said.

“Huh, really?” she asked, shocked.

Feeling like some lightness would help, Chou put a finger to her lips. “I’m not telling.”

“Oh come on,” she said, bursting out into giggles.

Over the school day, the students were in a cheerful mood. Shiho showed up to lunch with a bouquet that her homeroom class had gotten her. The rumors of the principal’s outburst that morning had gotten spread around quickly too. Even though the tabloid article wasn’t out yet, the students knew enough to feel dissatisfied more with the principal’s words rather than their own. Most of the support went to Ann, though. At the end of the day, Chou heard people repeating their words but not that it had been her with Ann. It was fine. But how would the principal take this the rest of the week?

She got to the gardening closet and found Haru there with containers of various flowers. “Oh, hello,” she said, smiling but she seemed worried. “These are the plants I decided on. When I told the greenhouse assistant that I was interested in native flowers, they were very supportive of doing so. They let me know which ones are good for city gardens too, so these should thrive well here.”

“That’s great, but is something wrong?” Chou asked.

Haru put a hand to her cheek. “You can tell? Um, I’m really sorry, Chou. You’ve been a great help. After teaching you, I thought I could ask the committee adviser if there were any other students interested. And there were, a few freshmen students. But, well…”

“Were they nervous about me being here?” Chou asked. That was disappointing. Chou would have liked to stand up for herself. But, was that best for Haru?

“Yes, even when I explained that you were very nice,” she said. “They said they’d think about it, but they’d join for sure if you weren’t there. I’m really sorry, I did my best.”

“It’s fine,” Chou said on getting some advice from an Empress Persona she had. “If you have more help if I’m not in the committee, that’s great. I don’t mind leaving.”

“Really? Thank you.”

Chou smiled. “But you have my number, so if you want someone to hang out with while working on your vegetables, just text me after classes. Or we could go out for coffee or something some afternoon; I live above a coffee shop, actually, so I’d be happy to take you there.”

“Wow, really?” she asked, smiling eagerly. But the eagerness didn’t last long. “Um, I’d love that, but it might be tricky to schedule. I’d like to hang out with you some afternoon, though. I’ll let you know.”

“Good, I’d like to stay friends,” Chou said.

“Yes, that would be wonderful,” Haru said, grateful for her saying that.

Since she was dropping out of the gardening committee, she found Ryuji doing stretches in the courtyard. “Oh hey, you have some time to do some running today?” he asked on seeing her. “We don’t have official practice today, but I decided to run anyhow.”

“Sure, let me get into my gym uniform,” Chou said, shifting over to a Chariot Persona as well.

They did a few warm-up jogs in front of the school, as Ryuji wanted to make sure that his leg was going to be fine. Then they did the mile long route around the neighborhood three times, taking breaks between each. While neither of them were near six minutes yet, it felt like with more practice, it could be done. That would be nice accomplishment even if she wasn’t much into athletics.

“Hey, could we go by that coffee shop you live at?” Ryuji asked. “I’m not much into coffee, but I was curious to try the curry.”

“Sure, let’s head on over,” she said.

* * *

Kobayakawa was in trouble. He’d been suspecting it, but didn’t think that he’d truly be threatened by it. But now, the school board was grilling him during their meeting: about his treatment of the students, about his connection to Kamoshida and other teachers, about shifting his duties off to other staff members, even about his connections that got him and Kamoshida positions at the school. There were a lot of things he didn’t have answers for. Before now, he hadn’t thought of the questions because they seemed like obvious knowledge. He wasn’t hurting anyone. Why was he being blamed?

Really, why?! There was no abuse going on! The school teams held normal practices; any sport held risk of injury. And sure, there might be some teachers dating students after school. That was normal too. As long as both parties were of age of consent, it was fine. Nothing should be wrong. It was people who made a big fuss out of all these normal things that made them seem wrong. Nobody liked a complainer.

But the student board was listening to all the complainers, even the new counselor who reported that he had taken in that girl on probation without any intention of giving her the help she needed. But why give help to an established criminal? If it wasn’t for the bribe he’d gotten (and who it had come from), he would’ve declined her entry immediately. Perhaps he should have, as that leniency might’ve triggered all these problems around the school.

On top of all that… Shido had just refused to bail him out of this undeserved mess. Why? Didn’t he think this school was important? He’d made it sound than way when Kobayakawa had brought up endorsement of his application, as a return favor for political funding. Back then, Kobayakawa had a lot of great ideas for making the best school in existence. And if everyone had just worked with him, it would have come true.

But now he was fired, restricted from working for this school or its associate schools ever again.

What did he do now?

* * *

Since Ryuji wasn’t interested in coffee, Sojiro offered him some soda for his drink. There was an old couple at another table, but they could take seats at the counter. “Wow, this is good stuff,” Ryuji said. “I haven’t had a curry like this before. What do you put in it?”

“He won’t tell you,” Chou said.

Sojiro smirked a little. “It’s a secret recipe. But I’m glad you like it.”

“Since it’s this good, I don’t blame you,” Ryuji said. After a couple moments of regular chatter, he said, “Hey, I’m not going to be able to hang out with you much in coming months. Summer’s the big season for track meets and since I’m a team captain now, I basically have to be around every practice.”

“We’ll still hang out for lunch, right?” she asked.

He nodded. “Sure, wouldn’t miss it. Though man, there are times when this all feels unreal. I mean, I was part of why the team got disbanded. I’m glad we’re back together, but sometimes I wonder if I’m supposed to be there or if I’m supposed to be doing something else.”

There was something going on here; maybe there was some ill luck about today, getting both Ann and Ryuji to feel like this timeline wasn’t right. But if it was that, encouraging him not to worry should work too. “That might be because things changed so much,” Chou suggested. “I mean, you are team captain now, totally different from last year.”

Proud of that but still a bit sheepish, he smiled. “Yeah, that’s been a shocker. It’s made my mom real happy; she’s been telling just about everyone in the neighborhood about it, getting kinda embarrassing.”

“But you’ll take that cause it is your mom?” Chou asked, playfully teasing him.

“Hey, don’t point it out,” he said, although he smiled even more. Then time slowed down again.

“Again?” Chou muttered.

Her other self chuckled. “I’m holding you to that promise. And it’s another good opportunity; you’ve gotten close enough to both your friends that they’d consider a date. In fact, you could invite him upstairs with a bit of convincing right now.”

“Just to talk, maybe,” she said, then gestured over to where Sojiro was frozen tapping his cigarette in an ashtray. “My guardian is right here, after all.”

“Hmph, don’t be too cowardly.” She winked. “So wanna snag a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend? They’re both fun options.”

Chou shook her head, not having to think long on it. “He’s a cool guy and rival; maybe later on. But not right now. As I said, he might have a thing for Ann. I’ve seen guys with crushes. If he does have one, he’s pretty good at not making it obvious and it would be far more likely that his crush is on Ann, not me.”

Her other self frowned. “Really? Turn down two chances in one day?”

“I don’t feel like it’s a good time even if there is a chance,” she said.

When time started back up, Ryuji went back to talking. “Though being captain means I’m not working as much on my time. But man, you should see some of our runners! Nakaoka’s always been great; he was my rival before you and he does still taunt me about getting faster. But Takeishi has been improving lately; he could still be a top runner. And three of the freshmen are really talented too, even though they weren’t scouted!”

“That’s awesome,” Chou said.

Ryuji nodded energetically. “Yeah, I’m excited to see how they all do in meets! Our old coach is going to be officially hired back next week, and once he starts teaching again, I’m sure everybody’s times are going to start going down.”

“You seem proud of them,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said, seeming like an excited kid. It was cute, although not cute enough to convince her to invite him to talk upstairs. “Heh, I thought the most fun of track was seeing yourself run faster and longer, winning your own medals. But that was last year. Having someplace to belong is real important; I think all the other juniors and seniors are feeling that now, since there hasn’t been any arguments over the weekend. And since I’m teaching too, I want to see how the freshman improve. You too, since you got me back into things.”

“Let me know when the meets are and I’ll try to be there to cheer you on,” Chou said. “I’d join, but I’ve already had to quit the gardening committee because I was scaring off some new members.”

“Man, we’ve really got to fix that for you sometime,” Ryuji said, shaking his head. “I’m sure if anybody got to talking with you, they’d quickly see that those charges were ridiculous. You’re not a violent person.” Then he chuckled, in too much of a good mood to be down for long. “You’re a real life troll sometimes with your jokes, but that’s funny.”

“Better to make someone laugh than to hurt them,” Chou said.

Once Ryuji headed back home, Chou went upstairs to change out of her uniform and talk to Morgana. “What’s your plans for tonight?” she asked.

“I was thinking of going ahead with finishing up the Hashimoto Palaces.”

Morgana tilted her head. “Oh? Has something changed? If we want to do that, we’d need to get their Palaces destroyed before Thursday when your school trip is. That’d be least suspicious.”

Chou nodded. “I know. But did you hear the gossip about that actor this morning?”

“Uh…” she thought a few moments too long.

After waiting, she explained, “An actor in a show filmed at their studios died over the weekend; it was possibly a suicide, and possibly that victim whose cognition we saw in Kyoko’s Palace. We were too late for him, but with that happening, I don’t want to be late for another victim.”

“Good point,” Morgana said, then looked at her paw. “Then… we’d have to find the two Treasures tonight, make the cards, then defeat the two Shadows by Wednesday. That’s a packed week.”

“And if we don’t find the Treasures tonight, we’ll have to delay them at least a week,” Chou said. “Preferably longer. So it will be packed, but if we can make it seem like a ghost’s vengeance, it’ll get people talking.”

“Oo, that sounds fun!” she said eagerly. “Okay, it shouldn’t be so bad, but we really have to find both Treasures tonight.”

“That’s why we’re heading out now,” she said. She’d have to ignore her Confidants a bit, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

Though she should at least check in with Makoto, since it was likely that she needed to do more to keep her out of potential trouble.


	43. temptation::azazal

6/6

Even though it wasn’t as good as Leblanc, Chou picked up a coffee and snack at the café across from the station. It would be good for energy going into the Metaverse now. She gave Morgana a treat too before they headed on into Kenzo’s Palace. For the maze to the secret lab, it made sense to get the safe room there in Kenzo’s Palace, then see how getting through both Palaces would work. She made sure to wear Kyoko’s ring for this. Her Palace was the tougher one, so if this was a free pass, it’d be a big help.

The maze room looked similar to Kyoko’s maze: tiled floors in three colors, with the glass walls on the blue squares. It made sense as they’d discussed how the subliminal system should be protected. After fighting a pair of archangels, Joker looked over the layout, then chose a set of gray tiles to switch Palaces with her phone. “Let’s see how this goes,” she said.

“Ready when you are,” Ace said.

All the colors swirled around them when she navigated to Kyoko’s Palace. The glass walls stayed visible, retracting from the blue squares to raise on the orange. While the shift was going on, they heard Kenzo’s thoughts. “I will keep patient. I will change the world from its awful godforsaken state. But I need patience. I’m not perfect, but I’m getting better. It’s the world that keeps getting worse. Did I ever tell you about the Amagi Inn episode?”

Before he could go on with his story, the room settled down into Kyoko’s maze. A nekomata Shadow pounced them and proved herself to be tougher than the archangels. She was still defeated, letting them advance. As they continued through the room, the maze tried to disorient them. The floor would swing to the right or left after battles or shifting Palaces.

But they could hear the thoughts of the two as they went through, as long as they weren’t fighting a Shadow. Kyoko sounded smug even in her thoughts. “Glamor is something I thought I wanted, but it ended up as another tool for power. Stardom is something you fight for, making every decision in your life to build your power and fame. As a woman, I have much more to fight against, namely all the men who assume they deserve power. If I hadn’t fought for myself, I’d have been another throwaway starlet in my mid-twenties.”

And even though the transfer twisted the room around, Ace was quick to point out the exit. “There. I can always smell the Treasures! And they’re both in the same general direction.”

“Good, I’m counting on you,” Joker said.

Then it was back to Kenzo. “It was back when I figured out the formula for popularity, but was still trying to figure out what made sex appeal. Right, it was on the News of the Weird, something I was doing to fund projects I was more passionate about. Moral shows are necessary, but unprofitable. So I found sensational stories that pulled in many curious viewers, such as a struggling traditional inn being run by a woman and her daughter. There was already scandal involving the inn; add in a ghost and that was irresistible!”

Back in Kyoko’s Palace, odd ghosts appeared. They were much more faded than the demons, so they couldn’t tell who the ghosts might be. Kyoko didn’t care. “In the minds of men, an actress’ worth is not in her talent, but with her body. But to women, talent and emotion are important to impress. The men believe that they are in control. Appealing to that, appealing to their interest, and appealing to women: that all has made my power as a star remain strong. Whatever it takes to get and keep power, it is worth doing.”

“I learned a lot from doing News of the Weird: the formulas of show business, the general disposition of others, how to leverage power from lustful nitwits. And I learned some about myself. I was annoyed that the Amagi mother and daughter refused my offer even though it should have worked perfectly. But now, I admire them for sticking up for themselves. It takes courage to do that when stardom is on the table. I could use that courage. It’s just, it’s a lot of work fighting off the world’s distortions. I couldn’t change the world, so I just gathered power and money for myself. Now that I have both and an extra edge, I can change this disgusting world.”

“There was someone who taught me about power. An awful man in person, greatly admired by everyone outside the studio. However, I did make him fall. That gave me power; I took it all from him. Now hardly anyone speaks his name while I’m still well known. Once I have the power from the Metaverse as well, my name will be known forever.”

In Kyoko’s Palace, Joker and Ace found the exit from the glass maze. “Man, these two are full of themselves,” Ace said.

“It’s no different than the other Palaces we’ve been in,” Joker said.

“True.” She looked over at the door. “I believe that there’s more maze through here. The Treasures are closer, but not next room close. Also,” Ace tapped the door, “we’re still not that deep into the subconscious. This place is still rational. But my whiskers tell me that it’ll be different on the other side.”

“I was wondering about that,” she said. “It’s also where the demons can act differently and the Shadows are at their strongest.”

“Let’s be careful then,” Ace said, opening the door.

There was a gray haze as they passed through, something that grew into the fog of the deep subconscious. The maze dropped any pretense at being a room then. A red carpet led off into a foggy expanse, lit up from shifting angles. Off the floating path, there were random pieces of scenery, like trees, school desks, cars, silhouettes of people, and more. Close around them, there were shadowed forms of a cheering crowd and flashing cameras. The path still tried to maintain its maze state, but had trouble due to being in more irrational parts of the Palaces. The gray stone area at the far end was the only option to transfer over to Kenzo’s Palace for the missing path.

A cognition of Kenzo in a gray suit appeared along the way. He was standing perfectly still, to where not even his mouth moved when he said, “Please do not disturb my lovely wife! She is beautiful, wise, composed, and utterly perfect all around. I will work hard to support her in every way, make her star continue to shine. Please do not disturb my lovely wife!” And he kept repeating himself.

“Can I get her autograph?” someone in the crowd called.

“Can I get nude pics?” someone else added.

“She expects that kind of question?” Joker asked quietly. Though it wasn’t as weird as the toilet thing.

“That’s weird,” Ace said. “At least he’s not in our way.” They moved on, back to Kenzo’s Palace.

It remained a similar foggy path, with nothing to act as cover. There was some resemblance to a studio set of a suburban street here, in the images of houses surrounded by an array of cables and large cameras. Of the cognitions milling around, Kyoko’s was the only distinctive one. She was dressed in a blue business suit with a knee-length skirt; a necklace of a winged heart seemed out of place. There was no way to avoid her notice, since she was pacing on the tiles.

“Hold up,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Do you have permission to be here?”

“We were asked to come through here,” Joker said.

“I wasn’t aware of anyone coming down here,” the cognition said, taking her heart pendant in hand. “Therefore, I can’t let you get further.”

“You think you can stop us?” Ace asked, shaking her head.

“Of course I can,” she said confidently. “I can do anything: martial arts, book-keeping, scheduling, keeping house, cooking, hosting tea ceremonies, fencing, and this. Transform!” A haze of pink sparkles surrounded her in a glow, turning her into a girl in a frilly pink dress with lots of red and white ribbons. As the sparkles were subsiding, she swung a rose-tipped staff around. “You shall not pass! Sparkling Rose Angel Princess will not allow it!”

“Huh?” Ace asked, puzzled at the transformation. She tilted her head.

“It’s an old magical girl show,” Joker said. “One of her earliest roles.”

“It’s a classic,” the cognition said. “A timeless example of how to be a pure and good heroine, and a pure and good person overall. Now, if you won’t leave,” she waved her staff and summoned three angels and a principality to back her up, “we’re going to show you the error of your ways!”

Arsene had Maeiga, which ought to be good against all the angels here. He was also weak to light, which they could certainly use. Hoping that he was faster, she swapped to Arsene and cast Maeiga. One of the angels got off Magaru before then, but it did little to Ace and Joker could withstand that readily. The Maeiga caused skull-shaped snaps to knock the four angels down to the ground; the cognition of Kyoko squealed but wasn’t actually weak to it. Once she got her footing, she swung her staff to cast something that started with a whirlwind of pink, red, and white hearts.

It ended in an eruption of fire that Ace had to heal them up from. With a quick exchange, they agreed on a strategy. Joker kept up with Maeiga to make sure the angels didn’t get to attack often. Meanwhile Ace kept trying to get the Angel Princess off balance too. There was a close call when the the Principality got off a spell on Joker; it made everything seem white for a moment. Then she felt Arsene’s will to not lose, reminding her that she could not lose to some little mid-boss. She stood her ground and endured until Ace could throw a Bead her way.

Once they recovered their momentum, and killed off one of the angels just off the Maeiga casts, Ace was able to knock the Angel Princess off her feet. That let them throw a full force attack on the group, defeating the cognition and her angels. She reappeared a moment later, on her knees and shaking. “H-huh? I don’t get it; I can’t be defeated by evil. I’m Sparkling Rose Angel Princess… I’m good so I always win.”

“Why do you assume we’re evil?” Joker asked, having a hunch on this.

The cognition’s eyes went wide. “Wh-what? Oh dear, I am so so sorry! I didn’t recognize you in here, so I thought you were invaders and therefore evil. But you beat me. Evil cannot defeat me, so you must be good. You must have a reason to be here, so I won’t delay you any longer.”

Ace looked up at Joker questioningly; Joker smirked and put a finger to her lips. Then she moved ahead. “Thank you, Sparkling Rose, we’ll be punishing evil.”

The cognition smiled brightly at that. “Yeah! You get ‘em!”

“I don’t get the logic, but sure,” Ace said, following Joker to the next part of their path.

“Cognitions are based on a person’s perceptions, without their own reason,” Joker said. “I played to her type.”

“Ah, as long as it works.”

The next section in Kyoko’s Palace looked like a clearing in a bamboo forest. There were two exits, seemingly in the same direction. Another cognition of Kyoko was there, this time in a role that Joker vaguely remembered from a martial arts drama. In that series, she was a skilled martial artist who helped out the hero and was one of his love interests. “Hey, you Ultrablack?” she asked, using that role’s persona. “You’ve got the ring.”

“Yes, we’re here about the subliminal system,” Joker said.

The cognition nodded. “Good. If you can reach this point, you should be able to switch it over. My true self can handle things from there.”

“I’m sure,” Joker said. “I can’t guarantee that I can transfer it today, but we’ll do what we can.”

“Get it done,” the cognition said, stepping out of the way.

Meanwhile, Ace had been studying the two exits. “I think it’s that way,” she said, pointing to the right exit. “At least that’s closer to our goal.”

“This is a maze, so we’ll just have to see,” Joker said. They headed to the right.

The gray tiles teleported them both away once stepped on, not letting them transfer to the other Palace. The area Joker ended up in was a classroom set. Instead of a cognition, the Kyoko there was the demon using her guise. “Hello, we should talk,” she said.

“I knew it,” Joker said.

The demon chuckled. “Expecting this now? Good on you.” She then transformed into Chou in her Shujin uniform (but not the butterfly pin). “The old saying is that knowledge is power. These days, such power is worth even more. Suits me just fine because I’ve always dealt in knowledge.”

“So who are you?” she said, sitting on a desk rather than in the chair. If the demon was going to talk, she might as well stick around until Ace could find her. And they basically just talked; she was probably fine, especially given what she’d already said.

“My name is Azazal,” the demon said, giving a bow. “Forgive me for not mentioning it yet. You seem like an interesting person. I’ve been around for thousands of years, helping humans learn things to take full advantage of their potential. Any type of knowledge you can think of, I’ve had a hand in it: metallurgy, make-up, computers, libraries, light and sound… for my current host, I taught her the formulas for achieving success in television and movies. Not directly, mind you. But her husband wouldn’t teach her at all while I taught her by guiding observations and giving unconscious hints.”

“You didn’t teach her any respect for others,” Joker said.

Azazal shrugged. “It wasn’t something she would learn. It’s disappointing to me, though I’ve seen it before. If she would’ve opened her mind more to me, or if you would decide to take my lessons instead, I could have taught anything at all. Anything, even knowledge long forgotten. Modern society has forgotten so much that their ancient ancestors discovered. It’s heart-breaking.” But then she winked. “Or if you think of it another way, it’s a power that no other being could grant you.”

Knowledge of things long forgotten… that could be really interesting. Helpful too, given that she was dealing with things that most people didn’t believe in. But Ace had warned her that the demons were trouble; Iwai too, for that matter. “Things can get forgotten for being unimportant,” she said instead. “Not everything, but a lot of things are that way.”

“I suppose,” she said. “But there’s a lot that should have been remembered. Like about Philemon, since you’re wearing his pin. He and his counterpart Nylarthatop are both extreme portraits of humanity. As such, neither can be counted on. You can take advantage of both if you know what to do.”

“That doesn’t take much to realize,” Joker said, acting unimpressed. Though Azazal had proven that they had interesting information in the formulas for popular media. While it wasn’t something Joker could make use of, similar formulas might be very useful.

Azazal shrugged, not taking it personally. “But if you act on it without knowing the right buttons to push, either one of them can screw you over for life. I can let you know the right strategies, plus information about any other supernatural beings that could be of benefit. I just want knowledge to be spread and forgotten things to be relearned. Whatever you do with that knowledge is up to you.”

“I don’t agree with that attitude,” she said. “Your host may have caused someone to die and is creating a terrible work environment. It seems like a poor use of knowledge to me.”

“I agree,” Azazal said, looking and sounding disappointed. “She seemed so ambitious and intelligent at first, like she could change the world around her. But she’s changed it negatively and her ambitions aren’t all that high.”

“Really?” Joker asked, raising an eyebrow. “She’s trying to take control of the city through subliminal manipulations and that’s not ambitious?”

They nodded. “Whatever she says, she is doing it just to make herself the center of everything. She’s not trying to open up potential for all humanity, or even a part of them. Just herself. The knowledge she has could do so much more! But she’s currently my host… I’d love to have a new host and you seem like an interesting person. What do you say? It’ll be of benefit to us both, and could be a benefit to many more people depending on what you decide to do.”

Although she knew Azazal was a demon, Joker did find the offer interesting. Taking them at their word was foolish. But if Azazal was disappointed in how Kyoko used her knowledge and influence, then getting information from them might be useful. Like about demons and angels, and other beings of the supernatural that people were ignorant of, all things Joker couldn’t find in books. And learning things wasn’t evil; it seemed like positives all around.

But she couldn’t take Azazal’s word at face value. “I’d rather see how far I can go without demons,” Joker said. “Especially since you don’t explain what you get out of such a relationship.”

“I get to exist outside the Abyss,” Azazal said, surprisingly acting frank. “That and getting to defy the Master of this Game; you underestimate just how important both these matters are to us. In fact, defying that Master is important enough that I can accept this denial and still give you some free advice.” They winked an eye, then transformed into a black-winged angel. “If you want to break further out of the Master’s control, you should try summoning Philemon or Nylarthetop into the Velvet Room. But the trick to doing that… well, if you’re working without me, it’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own. But call on me if you change your mind.” Azazal then vanished, leaving her alone in the classroom.

Not for long, as Ace found her way through the door. “Was it that demon that tricked us like this?” she asked, her ears tilted down. “I’m sorry; I could tell it was a teleport tile after we made that mistake. I wasn’t expecting it before.”

“It’s fine,” Joker said, getting off the desk. “And it was probably the demon, Azazal this time. We should keep expecting this, since they seem convinced that I’m a tempting target.”

“But not me, huh?” Ace said, seeming disappointed.

Immediately, Joker had the thought that it was another sign that Ace likely wasn’t human. The demons wanted a human host. “You’re my mentor,” she said instead. “So they might figure that you’re too wise to get tempted by them.”

“Could be,” she said. “I’ll try to stick with you in the other Palace, since there’s another demon there.”

The teleport tiles in the classroom door led them to a diner set, then a park, then finally back to the bamboo grove with the gray tiles on the other path. Even without the glass pillars, gray tiles might be the only places safe to transfer Palaces. The next part of Kenzo’s Palace put them on a street with garishly colored signs everywhere. A cognition with a similar style spotted them before they could use the signs to hide. “Hey hey, you ready to play?”

“What?” Ace asked, puzzled at the question.

The game show host, as it seemed to be, gestured to the open part of the street. “Today, weeeee’re having a Challenge of the Holy Beasts! If you can pass the judgment of our holy beasts, you’ll get a fabulous prize! Aaaannd, begin!” He snapped his fingers, calling in four empowered Shadows: Unicorn, Genbu, a large red bird, and a Kelpie.

Interesting… who was that bird? But something seemed off. “One of your holy beasts isn’t holy,” Joker said, pointing to the Kelpie.

“Whaaaaat?!” the Kelpie asked, ending in a whinny. “Hey, don’t break my cover!”

“Fool, we knew all along,” Genbu said, snapping at the ghostly horse with its snake tail.

“Your impurity is obvious from the death hanging behind you,” the Unicorn said.

The bird bowed its head. “But it proves the wisdom of our contestant. Their hope and courage are strong too.”

“Their spirits look clear to me,” the Unicorn said.

“Their minds are sharp, good,” Genbu said. “They should pass.”

“The tall one seems angry and vengeful deep down,” the Kelpie said. “And the short one isn’t…”

“Your judgment doesn’t matter,” the bird said. “Besides, it’s perfectly normal to be angry at the state of the world. It’s corrupt and distorted, full of impurity.”

“A righteous anger proves that you are good,” the Unicorn said. “So they should pass.”

“They should pass,” the bird said, causing the Kelpie to hang its head. “But first, they must also prove their strength, to show that they can change the world. Now, be ready for us!”

While Third Eye showed that these four were stronger than normal, the Kelpie, Unicorn, and Genbu all fell in an attack or two. The bird, Suzaku of the Sun Arcana by Third Eye, was the strongest Shadow they’d run into yet in Kenzo’s Palace. It used fire against them and seemed resistant to magic. Joker switched over to Matador to use his sword skills to take Suzaku down faster. Once she had a chance, Joker wanted to see see if she could get Suzaku as a Persona. She’d not seen it come up yet (or the Sun arcana at all), so it might require recruiting more varied Shadows.

“Wow, can you believe this?” the host cognition asked. “You actually proved yourself when we weren’t expecting you to succeed! This is nuts! But then, since you proved yourself, that means you should pass… and you get a prize! Wowza! What do you want, huh?” He snapped his fingers again, getting some stage hands to push a cart with three bow-wrapped presents out from behind a sign. “We’ve got a yen prize in yellow, a treasure prize in blue, and a friendly prize in red. Which will you choose, hmm?”

“Oo, treasure?” Ace asked, sniffing the air. An odd look came to her face before she sniffed again. “Hey, if those are treasures, they don’t smell too valuable.”

“Well you have bragging rights for winning a challenge we didn’t expect any to win,” the host said, still being energetic. “Which prize do you want, huh? They’re all great!”

“Uh-huh,” Ace said skeptically, looking up at her.

“What’s the red gift smell like?” Joker asked.

“Hmm.” After a moment she nodded. “Fire.”

“I think I’d like the red one then,” she said.

Ace shrugged. “Hmm, sure, if you think it’s good. I think we could find the other two things elsewhere.”

“Is that your decision, a friendly gift?” the host asked. “All righty, then take it! It’s yours! Then move on as you please.”

When Joker took the lid off the red gift, she found a mask inside. It was a bit different shape than she was used to, making her notice that Azazal had extended her mask down again. A few more adjustments like that and it could cover her face entirely. More importantly, the mask turned out to be the Persona Suzaku. Good. She called out Suzaku as the host wandered off. “Hey, think you could fly me up somewhere? Not now, but later.”

“It’d be dangerous in a subconscious depth like this,” Suzaku said, studying her. “Hmm… yes, I do believe I could take you for a short flight.”

Ace’s ears twitched. “Oh yeah, that could help us get to that place! At least you, and you could bring me in once you get a safe room. Good call! I wasn’t even thinking of that.”

After sending Suzaku away, she said, “It’s a possibility, and it seems there should be some other way too. But later; let’s get these two down first.”

“Right.”

The next portion in Kyoko’s Palace was darker than the others; the air felt heavy, like an oncoming storm was near. Ace immediately tensed, glancing for somewhere to hide. Ahead of them, there was a cognition of a man slumped against a fragment of wall. A streak of blood came from his mouth and no signs of life were visible. A young man was across from him, in a similar state sprawled on a couch.

“I don’t like this,” Ace said quietly.

“Me neither,” Joker said.

The cognition against the wall jerked his whole body to lift his head. “Hey babe, looking to be a star?” he asked, standing up with his head lolling on his shoulder. “I’ve got the money, so I’ve got the power. Now, on your knees and let me know how much you want to be on my show.”

“Get out of here, jerk!” a cognition of Kyoko said; it was the martial artist one. She was quick to kick the man back down. “Sorry, this nightmare should be defeated,” she said, not taking her eyes off the man. “Go on, I’ll get him back in his tomb.”

“All right,” Joker said.

But the man laughed, getting back up like a marionette rather than a person. “No, my little starlet. You could only overcome me by killing me, hmm? You never made me beg. I will torment you to the end of your days.”

“No, you won’t,” the Kyoko cognition said, not afraid. Then the young man behind her screamed; that made her close her eyes in trying to ignore him. “I’m not your victim.”

“But he is yours, is he not?” the man asked.

“I can handle this,” Kyoko’s cognition said while the young man fell into an inhuman wail. His hair grew long and unruly. “I’ll call on my other roles… go do what only you can!”

That fit with this role, Joker thought. “Sure,” she said, shifting to the shadows to cross the area without drawing the attention of the two men.

Ace followed her over. “It’s karma, I suppose,” she said once they were on the gray tiles.

“Right,” Joker said. It felt strange to just leave someone in trouble. But, this showed that Kyoko had crimes hidden from public eyes. She was their target now and leaving her to her karma was what they’d end up doing anyhow.

But on crossing over to Kenzo’s Palace, the lighting abruptly dimmed in their sights. This area had a brightly colored look like the Goodkin Kids sets, which had the advantage of plenty of cover to hide puppeteers. With this ominous atmosphere, it seemed even creepier than the fragmented crime scenes from the last area. There was a security guard there. From the scar on his forehead to the legible name tag, this was someone that Kenzo must have known well. The guard looked around at the sudden change; Joker and Ace had just enough time to hide before he spotted them. Once the guard moved, they could figure out the best way to cross over to the door on the other end of the set.

Then someone appeared where they had entered. It was the middle-age man from Kyoko’s crime scenes, alive and well as a cognition here. Although dressed in a dark gray suit, he flaunted wealth with gold and diamond accents like a tie pin and a ring. “So how is our wholesome idealist, hmm?” he asked smugly, like he considered Kenzo to be some bug he could squash once he wasn’t useful. “This show is _such_ an embarrassment, but it looks good in the eyes of the parents. And yet, the sponsors are looking for something fresh, so I’d rather put this energy into the News of the Weird. So he’ll accept the job, or perhaps give me proof of what he’s willing to do to keep this rotting fluff?”

The guard quickly had a baton out. “You’re gone, you don’t belong in here,” he said, then whistled with his fingers.

While the man chuckled darkly, the ghostly young figure of Kenzo appeared. On seeing who it was, the demon sneered. “Hmph. You are an expression of the sins of media. You shall be banished.” He then transformed into a strange figure, one with blue skin and six vivid red wings. With a blast of light from a higher form of Bless magic, he attacked the unwanted cognition.

But whoever this was turned out to be just as tough to be rid of. “Oh please,” the man said, flashing some money to summon his own guard. “Little Hashimoto knows that he lucked into money and power. If I had not died when I had, I would have crushed all his chances at continuing on in the business. I still have power over him.”

Ace tugged at Joker’s coat; she nodded and darted ahead with her to get to the door. While the cognitions and angel were distracted with each other, they could leave the maze area for a short hall full of the gray tiles. There was even a safe room off to the side. The door at the end of the hall was clearly labeled ‘Lab’ and had a card reader by it. Kenzo’s security card worked just fine there. On making sure of that, they went into the safe room to take claim of it.

It was another women’s restroom. “Kind of a weird place for this, but convenient for us,” Ace said.

“It’s convenient that the Palaces have all had safe rooms this deep in, close to the Treasures,” Joker said, taking the moment to sit and rest.

After a moment where her eyes were half-closed, Ace said, “Well, in the unconscious realms, it would be a rare master that would have total control over these deep thoughts and feelings too. Certainly not these sinners. Even a control freak would have safe rooms in their Palace due to the insecurities that make them a control freak in the first place.”

“But it still seems weirdly convenient,” she said. “One I’m grateful for, but weird.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ace then tilted her ears down. “Hey, am I weirdly convenient too? Because I had the thought, ‘this is weird’, and said it, but then I thought of something right after that made sense of it.”

Even if it was a safe room, this wasn’t a great place to be questioning something like that. “It could be due to the memories you lost,” she tried. “We can talk about it later, as now’s not exactly a good time.”

“Oh, you’re right, sorry,” she said, giving an apologetic bow. “But the Treasure’s right ahead, I know it! Let’s go confirm both, and then we can figure out what we want to do.”

In Kenzo’s part of the lab, they found a room like a silo, full of television screens. Most of them showed normal shows, but a few had black screens with simple messages: ‘Trust Councilman Shido’, ‘Mind your manners’, ‘Be a part of a good society’, and ‘Shame promiscuity’ were some easily seen from the top entrance. In the center, there was a large machine that might have come straight from a low-budget sci-fi movie. There were twirling things for some inexplicable purpose, lots of colored lights, and a keyboard with buttons for every Japanese character and more. A generic scientist cognition was sitting at the massive keyboard, trying to get something done.

“Hey, I’ve been working on something,” Ace said. “I should be able to put that guy to sleep.”

“Go ahead,” Joker said.

“Let’s sneak up closer so I can be sure.” They used dashing in the shadows to get down the three levels of the silo to get to where the scientist was. Once there, Ace focused on using her spell for a minute. That was likely why she hadn’t used it in battle yet. Casting it now, she put the cognition right to sleep. “Yes… but it was a simple cognition. We should still be careful not to wake him. And there’s the Treasure…”

Joker put a hand on Ace’s head to remind her not to get overly excited. The smoky orb of the Treasure was within the machine, in a decorative cage of red bars that would let either of them climb right in or out. On the screen nearest to the keyboard, there were a number of errors related to the Subliminal Suggestion System. Joker looked over them, finding repeated references to a ‘Whisper Shell’. The scientist was logged in so… she searched for the machine’s schematics and found that said shell was in a metal box on the other side.

Although the box was locked, she was able to pick the lock to pull the conch shell out. A nonsensical babble was coming out of the conch. “This might be what makes this work,” Joker said, before smashing it on the ground. “We should still destroy the machine.”

“It’s not going to hurt the Treasure in this state,” Ace said, calling out Zorro. “So let’s just do as much damage as we can.”

“Gotcha,” Joker said, calling out Matador to add his attacks in as well. Monitors got smashed, the keyboard was broken into dozens of pieces, many wires were cut. By the time they were done, the machine was a broken tower of technology. The scientist cognition was still asleep.

Before they could get back to the hall, the red-winged angel burst through the door. “What’s going on in here?”

“Hu-huh?” the scientist said sleepily. “Oh, Master Aniel? What… huh? What happened here?”

“I was going to ask you that,” the angel said sternly. “Who’s been in here?”

“No one, sir. Just me and the errors.”

Ace waved to her, only visible with Third Eye; they headed out into the hall to transfer over to Kyoko’s Palace. The door there also had a security card reader that let them in. Instead of a silo, this lab was a large round room surrounding a machine built with many large brass horns, like some carnival music maker. It was utterly silent since it had no messages to send. As such, it seemed like they didn’t need to mess with this machine.

The Treasure was there too, hanging above the machine with no protection. “Okay, we’ve got the locations found,” Ace said. “The double heist is going to be difficult, but I’m sure we can do it.”

“Right,” Joker agreed.

Right then, the air got cold. The young man from earlier drifted through the wall; he looked extremely tired with dark rings around his eyes. His hair was long and ragged, but not enough to cover up his face. “You aren’t helping the Hashimotos?” he asked.

“We shouldn’t talk about that here or else they might overhear,” Joker said, although Ace nodded. “Are you the actor Toya?”

“Y-yeah, that’s me.” He grabbed his head and briefly turned red. “Uuhh… I’m not sure what’s going on. I was told that I could take revenge, but it feels like something bad is trying to break out. I want to make them pay, but, I don’t want to turn into something terrible.”

“You should come with us into the other room,” Ace said. “We can talk there.”

“Okay,” Toya said, leaving the room the same way he came. They went back to the safe room, took control of it, and found him there. “Who are you?”

“We’re the Phantom Thieves,” Ace said. “I’m Ace, and this is Joker. We steal the distorted desires of people with Palaces, then force them to acknowledge their crimes. They will know all the pain they’ve given others, all the wrongs they have done. And we’re after the Hashimoto couple now, both Kyoko and Kenzo.”

“They should know their crimes,” Toya said, running his fingers through his hair. It was growing shorter as he did. “Everyone says you have to pay your favors to stay a star, so the producers and directors will keep you in their works. But I hate it; they either hurt me or drug me up so I don’t care. This has been going on for years.”

“That shouldn’t happen,” Joker said. “No one deserves to go through that.”

“I just wanted to act,” he said sadly. “Kyoko was the worst of them all. Kenzo never touched me, but he refused to listen and brushed me off as just another hedonist. Both of them kept editing my blog and giving me scripts for interviews. Um, I want to help but I don’t want to be terrible either.”

“If you could do something as a ghost, that might help our effort be noticed,” Joker said, getting some ideas.

“A ghost?” he asked.

“Sorry, did you not notice?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No… but it makes sense now. If I’m a ghost, then I can get into the studio’s computer systems and send a message live.”

“You can do that?” Ace asked, her eyes wide.

“I hope I can,” Toya said, thinking some more. “It was something I did in a movie as a ghost child. It was…” he drifted along a moment, becoming less of a phantom and more of a person. “If you have a phone, I can attach myself to that, if things work like that movie.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Joker said, bringing out her phone. “We’ll be putting together the calling cards with our message to them tomorrow; if you’re on my phone, we should be able to discuss them.”

Toya vanished into mist, then gathered himself around her phone. Once it all moved in, he sent a message. ‘I’ll do what I can. Thank you for letting me help.’

‘Thank you for helping,’ she texted him, then said to Ace, “It’s working so far. This should make things more interesting.”

“Right, we’ve done good work,” Ace said, satisfied with their progress.

* * *

‘I’ve had a long day, and dealt with some infuriating insincere people. That made things seem to drag on forever. On the other hand, Ann and Ryuji seem to be pretty happy with how things are going for them lately. Ann invited me out to a fashion show this weekend and I’ll probably go watch some of the track team’s meets during the summer. But this week is going to be busy.

‘Kinda wish I could get honors student credit for some of this extra school work, though. I could also not do all this, but I want the staff to see that I am putting in good effort. For now, though, I just want a good sleep.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some rambles on developing characters...
> 
> Kenzo was initially based on the TV studio director VIP in Shido's Palace; he was in a casino, but I felt like there's a bunch of gambling addict targets within the Mementos requests. However, his pitch to Haru sounded much like the News of the Weird guy from Persona 4 (hence the reference here). From there, I had a random inspiration that he could also be a former kid's show host trying to revive his show. It's not distorted in itself, but when you mix it with the show pitches based on high school girls and a moralizing extremist view fitting for Law villains of mainline SMT, then you get this conflicted distortion that was fitting for a Palace. With the connection to mainline SMT already there, I then gave him Aniel as his 'demon' and lots of angels for his Palace Shadows.
> 
> As mentioned before, Kyoko was then built as his counterpart; it made sense for her to secretly be the kind of person Kenzo would despise. I was also inspired by something that came out of the Hollywood sex scandals, that sometimes the victims then become victimizers. Then we get Toya from that, who nudges Chou to take care of the Palaces before the social studies trip. Kyoko is partly why I gave Moloch to Madarame, because Azazal adds an abuse of knowledge to her as well.


	44. Theft of Two Treasures

6/7

In between waiting on trains and waiting between classes, Chou texted with Toya to settle on the calling card messages. He had a lot of good information on the studio; Chou would show Morgana what he was saying, then write bits of their ideas in the text program. The Metaverse Navigator was active, so hopefully the conversation was locked to anyone else. With Ann heading out quickly to meet up with her parents and their tutoring session canceled, Chou was able to get out of school without being noticed.

Putting the stickers on the two cards one by one took a long time; she had her TV on for background noise while she did so. There was a special report from the news about phishing and other scams going on in Shibuya. They mentioned the crime groups in the city, but didn’t specify the mafia that Kaneshiro ran. Perhaps it had to do with the orders of media silence that Ohya complained about.

By the time she got done, it was getting late. Chou decided to do homework and an extra report, to keep ahead of things. And once Sojiro closed things up downstairs, she called the maid service. Kawakami answered and could come over; she even offered the special service of a maid’s cooking. Chou took her up on that since she hadn’t eaten much since lunch. While it was fine today, she’d have to be prepared tomorrow.

The meal Kawakami brought, however, were some ramen bowls. They were really good, just not what she would think of with an offer of cooking. “Phew, these high end noodles really make a difference, huh?” Kawakami said. “Takes more work than standard and you end up waiting longer, but it’s worth it every now and then.”

“Sure, thanks for making them,” Chou said. They were using the makeshift table, since that was the best option in the attic.

“It’s no trouble for Master,” she said with Becky’s cute energy. Then she spoke more like a teacher to say, “Though really, it should be an occasional meal rather than often. How are you doing with food around here? You should have plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables every day.”

“The grocery store nearby has a good snack box of fruit and veggies,” she said. “I’ve been getting that, plus I get the cafe’s excellent curry basically for free.”

“Oo, that sounds pretty nice,” Kawakami said, although it was hard to tell if she was sarcastic or not. “Maybe another time, we can use the kitchen downstairs for a better meal. I’m actually pretty good in the kitchen. And at a lot of things, really!”

“It did smell really nice in here after you mopped last time,” Chou said, hoping that she might let that slip. It’d be a useful little trick to know.

Her smile was sincere at that, but she winked. “That’s a secret, something you’ll only get with me, Master!” Then she frowned. “I do really well at the cleaning part of this job, even offered to help some of the younger maids do better. And the pigtails are pretty cute, huh? I do my own, and the latchkey kid next door often asks me to braid her hair.”

Maybe she’d dealt with someone who’d talked down to her; this was like a suppressed panic bubbling up when allowed. “My hair would be tough to get into tails,” Chou said.

That made her pause. “Oh right, you do have that curly thick hair. But you could make good use of some hairpins or barrettes, or even a decorative comb, and maybe if you grew it out for a while, you might still be able to make a cute style. Would you like me to bring a few things next time to see what we can do?”

Chou nodded. “Sure, as long as you can teach me whatever you do. We do have to meet up late.”

“Okay!” Then she paused again. “Well, if you really want to. I appreciate the business, I really do! But are you sure you should be wasting money on a maid service? This isn’t cheap.”

“I’ll be fine, and it helps you,” she said.

“You are sooo nice to me,” Kawakami said sweetly (but again it seemed more like the Becky persona). “But I shouldn’t be relying on my students; I should be the one helping you. And I’m definitely not too old for this!”

“Definitely.”

Kawakami nodded. “They’re just prejudiced. I’m doing all I can. I just, need more jobs so I can get the money.”

“For your sister,” Chou said, hoping that and the niceness might nudge her into talking more.

“Uh, of course,” Kawakami said, caught off guard. But she resisted. “Lots of doctor’s fees and the therapy sessions… so, what else do you want from me, Master?”

She looked tired, so Chou didn’t want to make her do something tough. But she should do something for this job since she still wasn’t telling the truth. “You could help me see if my bookshelf can be derusted,” she said, getting up to fetch the cleaner she’d gotten.

“That could be tough, but we’ll try,” she said, bringing out some gloves from her apron pockets.

In the time that Kawakami had left, they made some promising progress on getting the surface rust off. But it would take more time to see if the shelving unit could be salvaged or should be replaced.

* * *

6/8

While Chou was eating breakfast, Sojiro asked, “Hey, something up? You seem really serious.”

“I’ve got something serious to do today,” she said. “A school project that’ll be tough, but it should prove that I’m working hard.”

“Well good luck with that, but try not to stress out too much,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said, glad that he was accepting that excuse.

She took classes as normal, although her friends at lunch noticed too. “You haven’t really said much today,” Ann said. “Is something wrong?”

“No, sorry for worrying you,” Chou said. “I’ve been thinking over some extra reports I want to do.”

“Why would you do extra reports when your scores have been top notch so far?” Ryuji asked, confused about it.

“Those scores haven’t gotten me recognized as a potential honors student even if I should qualify on semester finals with similar scores,” she explained. “I checked the requirements and my probation shouldn’t count against me since I wasn’t a Shujin student when I was arrested. But it could give them reason to just say no.”

“I hope they do accept you as one,” Shiho said. “That acknowledgment would help a lot.”

“If you’ve got a bunch of extra reports to boost your scores, it should convince them,” Yuuki said. “Maki-san said that she recommended that I get extra credit for coaching the volleyball teams through Nationals, so maybe you can get her help.”

“Her advice would be good,” Chou agreed. “I’ll see about talking to her before exams.”

After school, Makoto seemed busy with student council work, while Haru was similarly busy with the gardening committee. Because of that, Chou headed right out to catch a train to Suidobashi. She opened up the Navigator on her phone outside the train station there. “Toya, you ready?”

“Yes. This should be a good time. Go inside the station’s lobby; there’s a waiting room to the right for live audience members. While you need a pass into the show, they won’t check for passes until they lead groups to the studios. You should be able to walk right in without problem.”

“Got it,” she said, heading over to the station. “Want to practice your lines before the big show?”

“I usually don’t have trouble,” Toya said, giving a soft laugh. “But I guess this is my last performance. I should give it my all. How’s this sound?” He gave her a speech he’d come up with, one that included both of the calling card messages.

That lasted long enough to get her into the station’s waiting room and take a seat near the door. By lowering her aura presence, the others in the area didn’t pay her much heed. It helped that she was hardly the only one on her phone there. “Sounds good,” she told him. Morgana hopped out onto the chair beside her, so Chou smirked. “Let’s go.”

Morgana nodded while Toya said, “Sure, let me know when.”

After taking a good look around, Chou shifted them over to her layer of the Metaverse. She made sure she had Joker’s costume for the gloves, then brought out the two envelopes she’d prepared. She’d used the copy shop near Shujin to make it look like both envelopes had been stamped ‘Urgent’ in black ink. From Toya’s information, that should get them sent straight to the Hashimoto couple without delay. Chou placed the two envelopes on the front desk, then went back to her seat to transfer back.

She spotted one of the front desk clerks handing the envelopes over to a messenger. The next few minutes dragged on as she waited for the notification that the Treasures had manifested. Kyoko’s popped up first; Kenzo’s showed up seconds later. With that signal, she transferred back to the Metaverse. She put up the calling card copies all over the station’s lobby, making sure to pair up each wherever she could. Then she returned to her seat before shifting back.

“All right, it’s your turn,” Chou whispered into the phone once they were back into reality.

“Sure,” Toya said. “Call this number and I’ll transfer into the live broadcast. I’ll make sure to erase your number from the computer.”

“Thanks,” she said, dialing the number he’d given. “Give them a performance they won’t forget.”

“Heh, you can count on me there. I feel like I can be free, once I do this task.”

“Good.”

The call got answered, by a man who flatly said, “Programming, what is it?”

Chou waited a moment to hear, “I’m through.” Then she hung up. Morgana hopped down to the floor, wanting to walk out.

“Hey, what’s that?” someone asked, noticing the cards suddenly on the walls, windows, and posts.

“Sorry, what was that?” Chou asked to no one, getting up and leaving the station. She mumbled some nonsense to fool anyone who might look at her. Once outside the station, she shifted back to the Metaverse to post up the remaining calling cards on the outside of the building.

She went back to the normal world, still acting like she was in a call. Large screens in the area were showing what the station was broadcasting. From there, she could see people noticing the calling cards and hear when Toya started speaking over the news brief going on in the normal broadcast.

“Hello, this is Toya Jochi,” he said. His voice was a little distorted, but the words were clear. “I died a few days ago, but I cannot let those who let me die escape justice. There is a system of rape, drugs, and blackmail in show business that calls victims weak and forces us to endure painful and shameful things to stay on screen. I wanted to act and make people smile, not to be a part of this cruel game. It ended up being my end, but I found someone who will fight for me: the Phantom Thieves of Dreams. And they have a message to send.

“Kyoko Hashimoto, the vain sinner of power lust, you only think of yourself while using sex, drugs, wealth, and words as weapons. You have crushed many dreams for the sake of your glory, taking the lives of others without remorse. We will steal the distorted desires of your heart and make you confess to your sins with your own mouth.

“Kenzo Hashimoto, the oblivious sinner of wrath. You despise the world around you while taking advantage of that which you hate. You know of the crimes that go on in your studio, but ignore them to keep your position. On top of that, you would use subliminal messaging across your broadcasts to sedate and control the public at the behest of corrupt sponsors. We will steal the distorted desires of your heart and make you confess to your sins with your own mouth.

“Both of these messages are from the Phantom Thieves. Their leader Joker has allowed me to give this last message to the world. Kyoko was the one who led me to my death and Kenzo dismissed me as a willing participant of the perversions around us. There were others in the business who harmed me as well, but now that these two leaders will fall, I can pass on in peace. I hope that what little I could do helps to make the future better. Goodbye.”

“It’s inaccurate to call me the leader,” Chou said quietly.

Morgana nodded. “You’re the one most people remember, so it’s fine by me. Ready to roll, partner?”

“Ready to roll,” she said, taking a quick glance around to make sure of her position before transferring them to Kenzo’s Palace.

* * *

“Got a message for you both,” one of the studio workers said, giving an envelope to each of them.

“Thank you,” Kenzo said, accepting the envelope stamped urgent. At this time of day, it was probably one of the late shows with a matter that needed sorting out now. Today’s work was done, so he’d planned on working on a personal project here for the evening. This shouldn’t be hard to sort out.

What he got was a bizarre card that looked like some demented middle school art project. It might’ve been some dumb prank, one that he’d have to get after the clerks for allowing it to be marked urgent. But the message stung with truth. How could they know about the subliminal suggestion project? And how could they know that he hated everything around him? Although that wasn’t accurate… it wasn’t! He loved Kyoko and there were things he loved in the world… but there was so much corrupt and rotten out there that he absolutely despised. Why were they going after him? There were no distorted desires in him, nothing they could steal.

But what if… there was the case of that volleyball coach, and that impostor artist. And these Phantom Thieves knew things they shouldn’t. “Kyoko, what’s going on here?” he asked, getting up from his desk.

There was an identical card in her hand, one she was staring at. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly, then glared at it. “Who’s responsible for this?! Trying to shame me like this, such rudeness.”

“This has to do with that cognitive psience stuff, doesn’t it?” Kenzo said, going to her desk since she had the papers. “So we should alert the council.”

“I’m not sure,” she said, looking off to the side in thought.

In the moment of silence, though, the screen showing the current news show got interrupted by someone unexpected: Toya Jochi. Hadn’t he passed away this past weekend? That had been a hassle to tone down. But, that was his voice; he even said that he was dead. Toya gave the messages on the two cards, along with his own last testimony. And a damning testimony it was, especially towards Kyoko.

But she smirked. “Oblivious sinner of wrath, huh? Fitting.”

“It is not,” Keno snapped. “And what’s this about you being a part of the perverse culture around here?”

“Well you never did anything about it,” she said, frowning at him. “You got absurdly lucky to stay around; I did much of the work to get you here as the studio’s producer. For everyone else, you have to play the game right or you get kicked out.”

“It’s a disgusting cycle that you all cling to!” he snapped. This was unreal; she never seemed like the sort.

“Well you’re going to fall too unless we get this under control now,” Kyoko said, bringing out a folder. “Call the news staff and tell them to brush it off as a prank.”

“No, who are you to order me about?” he asked, pounding his fist on her desk. “You’re the secretary; you do that.”

“Excuse me?” Kyoko asked, angry at him too.

A couple minutes later, a phone call interrupted their argument. It was the SIU Director, asking for them both to report in to a police hospital for investigation. Kenzo argued with him a brief while, but had to agree to it. While the heart theft was nonsensical, the SIU should be able to prevent anything from being done.

It wasn’t going to repair his broken trust in Kyoko, though.

* * *

On seeing the Palace, something odd was immediately apparent: the cognitive crowd was leaving the club in greater numbers than those waiting to enter. There was a harsh white light around the building too, with the multicolored lights turned to red. “I wonder if something happened that we missed,” Joker said after pointing it out.

“Maybe the calling card was enough to unnerve him,” Ace said.

“Maybe. We’ve got a lot on our plate today.”

“Yeah, let’s get going.”

Outside the safe room by the lab, they both sensed the powerful angel from before hanging out in the hall. Ace put her ear against the door and held a paw up. Joker crouched there, trying to sense what she could out there with Third Eye. From that, she could tell there was another pair of Shadows out there too. Angels, probably.

It felt like a few minutes until Ace finally spoke. “This is dicey, even though the big guy moved on. The angel Shadows around here have been on high alert since we were in here last, because we wrecked the lab machine. They’re under orders to attack on sight, no questions asked. The two out there will jump us the moment they notice the door opening.”

“What kind of Shadows are they?” Joker asked quietly.

“Those Principality angels,” Ace answered. “You’re better at ambushes. I’ll see about cracking the door open; you pounce when we’ve got a shot.”

“Got it.”

They both held their breath as Ace turned the knob and pulled the door open slightly. The angels didn’t respond yet. Once Ace was out of the way, Joker crept over to take hold of the door’s edge. The two angels were pacing around, keeping an eye on all doors. They didn’t think the safe room door being open was odd. Not wanting to give them a chance to notice, Joker darted out and used a skill to slash at both angels when they were both at the door to the maze. That and the follow up attack nearly destroyed the two angels. One of them tried to extinguish them with light, but Ace was able to finish off both right after.

In the lab, they found the machine still in ruins. Ace leapt over to the cage where the Treasure was; it now looked like a lavishly decorated book, floating in its bars with a golden tassel hanging out as a bookmark. Joker looked around the room as she headed down. Strangely, there weren’t any cognitions or guard Shadows in the lab itself. There was a lot of machinery in the walls that seemed suspicious this time. Had that been there before? It wasn’t a trap she recognized.

Ace suddenly meowed excitedly where she was slipping into the Treasure’s cage. “Murrrrow, it’s sooo beautiful… knowledge is a great Treasure and it’s all ours…”

Before Joker could even tell her to hush, the machinery in the walls fired up. Ace grabbed hold of the book while the silo carried the destroyed machine and the floor upwards. Joker rushed up to the door to open it. Before she got there, the ceiling split in half and moved aside instead of trying to crush them. This brought them into the large club where the news musical was being played on large screens. Everything looked colorful and bright, though the crowd of cognitions seemed sparse.

Kenzo’s Shadow was there, on the stage in his sparkling silver suit and TV tie. Where most male performers would have a group of back-up girls, he had a group of tall flowers that smiled and bounced around. “Ah-ha, our pesky raiders have come back!” Kenzo said proudly. Then he saw Ace in the cage and glared at her. “Hey, let go of that book! That’s mine!”

“Nope,” Ace said, hopping out of the cage and then on top of it, all while gripping the book tight.

“Back me up,” Joker called, dashing over to the stage.

“Roger!” It sounded like she hopped off the cage, perhaps to find a better spot.

Joker twirled her dagger around as the cognitions hurried out of the way. “We’re going to make you acknowledge your sins.”

“My sins?!” Kenzo asked, the lights turning red behind him. “What sins? The whole world around me is sinful; I am the sole paragon of virtue! What kind of hero are you to turn on me?”

“I’m no hero,” she retorted. “Neither are you a paragon. We are the Phantom Thieves, and you are apathetic hypocrite.”

“Why should I care when so many are distorted? Extreme means are necessary, and if it wasn’t for your interference, I could have gotten the system running!” Kenzo snapped his fingers and sent a bolt of lightning at her.

A healing spell hit Joker as she got onto the stage to use Swift Strike. With seemingly many blades, she tore up the dancing flowers and seemed to do some good damage on Kenzo’s Shadow. He sent another blast of lightning at her; the third one right after nearly knocked her out, but Arsene kept her on her feet despite not being her active Persona. But after that, Kenzo snapped his fingers and got nothing. It only took him a moment to decide to punch her instead, but that was easier to endure than the lightning barrage.

“He definitely resists light damage,” Ace said. “If he’s weak to anything, it’ll be statuses, I think. Um, you might wanna get that guy who can analyze stuff. Lemme try…”

A bit later, Ace had Kenzo’s Shadow asleep. “Thanks,” Joker said, taking out her phone to summon Yuuki. He arrived a couple moments later. “Ace will fill you in,” she called, making sure to boost herself again. Then she attacked the Shadow, knocking him back and waking him up.

Snarling, he found the energy to use his lightning blast again. Joker’s buff spells did their job, keeping her safer (though it still hurt). After some blows were exchanged, Ace joined her on the club stage to use wind against him. “It’s like I thought. And here, he said these would help.”

“Got it.” She caught a small speaker and clipped it to her ear on seeing a glimpse of it.

“You hear me now?” Yuuki asked.

“Gotcha, Beholder,” she said.

“Sure, we’ll go with that,” he said. “This guy has a lot of power behind his magic, but not much energy and is weak to statuses. You can take him down as long as he can’t cast.”

Joker nodded. Something to mute or silence him would be nice, if that was a thing. “Let’s not put him to sleep and let him cast again,” she said.

“Sure,” Ace said, hanging back so she could heal when needed.

“You should be losing!” Kenzo’s Shadow shouted, snapping his fingers upwards. “I’m the one who’s right, always! You need to learn your lesson, and I know the perfect folks to teach you. Kids!”

The grind of machinery fired up as the music briefly got shut off. The club changed even further, getting brighter colors, bouncy music, and cheerful scenery. More dancing flowers popped up, now accompanied by familiar tree props. Once all that was in place, the Goodkin Kids puppets dropped into place around Kenzo. They were quick to chant, “Let’s not fight! Let’s play, let’s play!”

With their chant, Joker felt dazed. She tried to attack Kenzo’s Shadow, but her hand felt heavy. “Those kids are preventing you both from doing any damage,” Yuuki reported. “Beholder thinks you can still do something, just nothing that would do damage.”

“Oh geez…” Ace said, then hopped out of the way as Kenzo proved that he could still attack. “Hey!”

Perhaps the kids might listen… “Way to not play fairly,” Joker said, making sure she could be heard over the music.

“I will punish you both!” Kenzo’s Shadow said, while the kids paused and looked at each other. He swung around and tried to hit her.

Seeing him coming easily, she got out of his reach and closer to the Goodkin Kids. “Being mad is being bad,” she said, recalling some of the lessons from the show.

“Cause you might do something really bad, when you want to do good!” the kids followed up with. “No fighting, play fair!”

“H-hey!” Kenzo’s Shadow said, his rage vanishing into bewilderment. “But I’m right. I’ve stayed good.”

“You taught us to not be angry for long,” one of the boys said.

“That’s right,” a girl said, getting nods of agreement from the others. “Everybody gets angry or upset sometimes, but you can’t let it get to you. Take a deep breath, and step away if you need to. That’s how you make sure you don’t stay angry and do something bad.”

“Th-that’s really hard to do around, er, adults you don’t agree with,” Kenzo said.

“We have different opinions because we’re different people,” the other girl said. “You gotta accept that and be open-minded! That’ll make the world harmonious!”

“That’s what you said!” the other kids chimed in.

“I, I’m not…” Kenzo stammered, at a loss being confronted by them.

This felt too easy. The angel hadn’t fused with the Shadow, though. And since his creations were scolding him, perhaps he saw what he was doing wrong. The connection was building up anyhow. “You have your faults and have caused harm,” Joker said. “See for yourself.”

His self-centered righteousness made him hate anyone who annoyed him in the slightest. Despite his practiced politeness and niceness, people often came to realize his true nature and resented him for it. They were unwilling to work with him, preferring to go through Kyoko instead. Then there was his willing ignorance of the injustice and greed going on around him. That allowed abusers to think they could get away with whatever they liked and victims to become hopeless as they failed to get help from him. While he thought it was useless, he now saw how his apathy was making things worse.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Kenzo cried, dropping to his knees. “I did everything right… but I ignored what was wrong. But I’m responsible for the studio! If I admit to this, I’ll be ruined! Especially if I speak against Councilman Shido.”

“Was he the one who offered the subliminal suggestion system?” Joker asked, keeping her own anger in check.

Kenzo nodded. “Yes, and he’ll ruin anyone who crosses him. He uses our network to spread the information he wants the public to know. But that’s the normal political connection he uses; he also has an agent who can use the Metaverse to assassinate or otherwise destroy people from within. Are you his agent?”

“No,” she said. “I mean to destroy him. And you need to correct your wrongs, undo the damage you’ve done. People have died because you did nothing.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ll go back to myself and do what I can. I’ll just have to take whatever happens as my punishment. I don’t know if I can recover from that…”

“You can do it!” one of the Goodkin boys said as the four puppets came over.

“Huh?” He looked over at them, puzzled again.

“We were always your ideals, hopes, and dreams,” the other boy said. “So, we’re always gonna be here to cheer you on!”

“Sometimes you’ve got to do the tough thing of living a good life to be a model for others,” one of the girls said. “So! Let’s do this! We believe in you!”

“Th-thanks…” Kenzo’s Shadow said, smiling sadly. “I always wanted to make the world better, but lost sight of it…”

Then something tore through the air itself. Joker tensed up, wondering if this was the thing that disrupted her fight with her own apathy. As the scenery peeled away, it turned into a darker club with neon lights all around. Kyoko’s Shadow stepped forward, wearing the sparkling golden gown from her statue. She also wore a necklace with a large pendant, one that glimmered under the stage lights. Was that her Treasure? Ace had gotten Kenzo’s Treasure in Joker’s pocket, and was now staring at the necklace.

“How pathetic,” Kyoko’s Shadow said, glowering down at Kenzo’s Shadow.

“Get back to your true self,” Joker said quickly to the latter.

“No, he should see how powerless he is,” Kyoko’s Shadow said. She kicked over a tree prop that remained.

“I have no reason to listen to you,” Kenzo’s Shadow said, turning into light before vanishing. The signs of his Palace disappeared, although the Goodkin Kids stuck around somehow.

“Um, we’re in her dreams now,” Yuuki said.

“As intended,” Joker said quietly.

“Hpmh, can’t we have some fun?” Kyoko’s Shadow asked, brushing her hair back. “But how unfortunate; you didn’t get the subliminal control machine over here. I understood that we had a deal.”

“I understood that I had a way into the lab,” Joker said, giving her a smirk. “And that you’re also someone who shouldn’t have power like that.”

“I suppose it was a mistake to trust you,” Kyoko said, now with Azazal echoing her as they emerged out of the darkness. “But you’ve made a mistake to betray me. My star will shine forever; a pack of grubby thieves isn’t going to scare me.”

“That necklace is her Treasure!” Ace said, at ready with her sword. “It’ll be harder to get, though.”

“We can do it,” Joker said as Azazal fused into Kyoko’s Shadow.

Spotlights shifted and smoke machines turned on to bathe an eight-foot tall Kyoko into a misty glow. Her golden dress became more revealing, with thorny rose vines wrapped all around her body; the roses were in suggestive positions. Like Azazal, there were now black feathered wings on her back. “Your style is exquisite, for hiding an ugly face,” she said, smiling proudly. “Look upon me and know why I am a star.”

“A lot of trickery to hide signs of your age?” Ace asked.

“Surface beauty to hide an inner ugliness,” Joker added.

“She’s a mean old hag before she gets makeup on!” one of the Goodkin Kids said, causing the other kids to echo, “Mean old hag! Mean old hag!”

“Whoa, those kids turned mean,” Yuuki said through the earpiece.

Meanwhile, Shadow Kyoko shrieked, grabbing a part of the thorny vine that grew instantly into a whip. She lashed out at all of them; it was distressing to hear the kids yelp at the damage, even though they were cognitions of puppets. “We’re in her Palace,” Ace said. “So I think they shifted over to her cognitions of them.”

“I hate children,” Kyoko said, her eyes flickering with fire. “I hate any critic, parasite, or useless average. But children have the combination of innocent obnoxiousness and lack of control that I can’t stand. They can stay with the useless averages who desire them, as long as they stay away from me. And that goes for you ridiculous puppets too!”

“You always were a stinker!” one of the girls called out; her clothes, as well as the rest, had shifted over to elementary school uniforms. “Stinky stinky Koko, thinks she’s such a queen. But she stinks cause she’s super mean!”

“Mean and a has-been!” a boy called, laughing.

“They’re enraging her,” Yuuki said, which was obvious. But then he added on, “You might want to keep her that way because I feel like she has far more magical power than any target of yours that I’ve seen. She’d ruin you if she got to cast a spell, but it seems you can take the whip even as the rage strengthens her.”

“Gotcha,” Joker said. “Ace, think you can get the Treasure while me and the kids distract her?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, casting Media before moving back to get out of sight.

Meanwhile, Joker cast a Sukukaja on one of the Goodkin girls. “I never even heard of her before, while I had admired Kenzo as a star once,” she said, making the kids laugh.

“Seriously?!” Kyoko snapped, making to strike her with the whip. Joker dodged out of the way. “I am the greatest actress of this age! Don’t be fooled by the studio secretary act; that just lets me run the whole place under that fool’s nose, as well as pick and choose whichever roles I please. Kenzo is only the studio’s main producer because of luck, some guidance from me, and some backstage deals. And I’m only married to him because I could use him like that. You should have been honored to strike a deal with me!”

“It was nice because you were so eager to fool yourself,” Joker said before hitting her with Swift Strike. Around her, the puppet kids were grabbing rocks and mudballs from thin air in order to throw them at Kyoko.

“Then you’re just another bully,” Kyoko said, striking her again. “I will not be stopped by bullies!”

For a few rounds, Joker focused on attacking. One of the puppet cognitions was sending out healing magic; it was random, but it seemed like she could rely on that. With all the attacks on her, Kyoko eventually dropped to her knees, gasping from the effort. Ace took the opportunity to hop on her back, grab the necklace, and yank it over her head. “Ha-ha, got it!”

“How dare you…” Kyoko snarled, attempting to whip Ace. Fortunately, Ace was nimble enough to get out of the way. “You do not deserve that! It is something passed down from actress to actress, only given to the most promising star out there. You thugs will do nothing but sully its gleam!”

“If that’s so, then you sully its gleam in your bribery and manipulations,” Ace retorted. “You toy with people and let them die!”

“If they die, they’re not strong enough,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “And I don’t care what you call it; this is what’s necessary to be a star!” She was then engulfed in light and sparkles. When it vanished, she had returned as the martial artist mixed with a black winged tengu, having a nose to rival Igor’s. “I’ll show you just how strong I am to thrive so long.”

“Whoa, now she’s really powerful with physical attacks!” Yuuki said. “Um, what now?”

The puppet kids were now following Kyoko’s rules of cognitions. But, did they have similar abilities? “Hey, we shouldn’t be hitting others,” Joker said.

“Are you crazy?” Shadow Kyoko asked, bouncing in place and ready to strike.

“No hitting, no hitting!” the kids called, gathering together and dancing around.

Since she was expecting it, Joker didn’t feel as dazed. Shadow Kyoko grimaced. “Shut up! What the hell are you doing?”

Shifting over to Suzaku, Joker cast Agilao at the Shadow. Kyoko followed up with a dazzling spell that caused rainbow lights everywhere. But since her magic power wasn’t boosted, it wasn’t that bad. Ace still took up healing so she could keep away with the Treasure. While Joker had to do most of the damage, the kids blocking any physical attacks kept things going smoothly. They knocked her down yet again.

Kyoko didn’t give up yet. “Hmph. I didn’t want to call on this power, but you have forced my hand. Let me show you one of my most powerful roles.” She transformed again, this time in a long white gown accented in red roses shimmering like diamonds. “Sparkling Rose Angel Queen will not allow bullies to reign. Repent!” Waving a thematic wand that suddenly appeared, she caused a white blast all around the club that was much like Frei. The kids all screamed as the blast destroyed them, since Kenzo’s cognition of them being good didn’t protect them.

On the other hand, it hit Joker and Ace like little more than a warm breeze. “Huh, that’s your most powerful role?” Ace asked, tilting her head.

“That should have vanquished the impure!” Kyoko snapped, waving the wand again. “Repent!”

“I can think of a couple reasons why it’s not working,” Joker said.

“Repent!”

“I’ve faced my own sins and accepted them,” Joker said, then twirled her dagger and pointed it to Kyoko. “The other option is that you are no longer pure enough to wield the power of the Sparkling Angels. You have sinned gravely. Can you withstand the weight of your sins?” She then called on the connection as it was ready.

Kyoko Hashimoto saw others as props, not people. Thus she treated them as props, or as enemies to destroy. Since she treated drugs lightly and sex as a power play, there were many people who had broken dreams, broken hearts, and broken lives. Toya and her old producer were far from the only people she’d led to their deaths, whether directly or indirectly. She had no ambitions to use her power and influence, save to gain more power and influence. Although, she found ruining others fun.

Not anymore. She screamed, collapsing and gripping her ears. “No, stop this! It’s not my fault! It’s society, the system! I was a victim first!”

“If you were a victim, you should have known better than to make more victims,” Ace said.

“It was my only way of fighting back…” she said, then clenched her ears tighter. “N-no… it wasn’t the only way… I didn’t have to fight everyone. But I wouldn’t have succeeded, and now…”

“You’ll know your sins for the rest of your life,” Joker said. “You are the one who needs to repent and atone, in a way that others notice. You need to stop the system.”

“I don’t know if I can, but I’ll do my best,” Kyoko said, shaking her head. When she let go of her ears, she looked up. “Hey, I’ll return to my real self, but first, were you honest in that you want Councilman Shido ruined? That level of vitriol is not easy to act.”

“Yes, that is my ultimate goal,” Joker said.

She got back to her feet. “I always knew that he was like me; he’d ruin anybody in his way, or even for the thrill of it. If I speak against him…” then she laughed nervously. “Well, this’ll show everyone that I’ve ruined myself. So Joker? I will make sure to point out his involvement, though I may need to pull some last strings to get such a statement broadcast.”

“Thank you,” Joker said, giving a nod.

“It’s hard to accept, but it is my responsibility,” Kyoko’s Shadow said before vanishing.

Because they were in the club itself, Joker and Ace ran out the front door to get to a safe place to transfer them and Yuuki out. They paused a moment in the alley to make sure they were in the clear; there were a couple of doors here, but no people. There was a necklace with a large pendant in front of Morgana. “Wow, we did it! We got two Treasures and beat two Owners with only calling that Mishima guy. We did great!”

“Yeah,” Chou said, smiling as she crouched to pick the necklace up. “My heart’s still racing, but I just know I’m going to be exhausted when we get back to Leblanc.”

“We can relax the rest of the day,” Morgana said, stretching herself. “So what is that?”

“I guess a locket,” Chou said, finding a latch on the side so she could open it up. There was an old signed photograph of an actress inside, but it wasn’t Kyoko. “Oh, I know her; she was a famous Japanese actress a long time ago. I’d guess that she inspired Kyoko and her powerful drive to be a star.” She turned the locket to show Morgana the picture. “If this autograph appears authentic, this is going to sell for a lot.”

“Wow, that’s really nice outside of Treasure form,” she said. “So what about the book?”

“Hang on.” She set the locket in a smaller pocket of her bag, wondering if she should stop by shops in Shibuya to find something to wrap it in for safety. Then she brought out the book. “Hmm, ‘Blessed Wings: Moral Fairy Tales’. It won’t be worth as much as the locket, but it would be safer to hold onto than any other Treasure yet. Though given how distorted his morals were, I’m curious what about these tales would lead to that.”

“Yeah, we could read a couple,” Morgana said.

“Sure thing.”

In Shibuya, they searched out protection for the locket and a meal at the beef bowl shop. Then they headed back to Leblanc for a quiet evening.


	45. Parallel Tracks

6/8

Due to his arrangements, Goro got his homework assignments at the start of the week. He could sometimes finish it day by day like normal students. But this weekend, he had a meeting with the police, a meeting with Niijima, practice exams, and a television appearance to deal with. As a result, he was working on school assignments for the rest of the week today. It didn’t matter if he stayed up late for this; he already had permission to skip classes when needed. Though he should show up for most of them, just to be safe…

His phone buzzed with an urgent signal. “I have other responsibilities,” Goro muttered, then answered. “Yes, what’s the matter?”

He was to the point, at least. “The Phantom Thieves have a new target. They’ve posted their cards at the television station in Suidobashi.”

“Who are they after?” he asked, grabbing the notebook he had for cases.

“Kenzo and Kyoko Hashimoto.”

“Both of them?” That was daring of them, especially for newbies attacking Palaces. He could handle multiple targets in a day easily, though he hadn’t pursued any Palace owners.

“Yes, and the Thieves hijacked the live broadcast to make a scene. Go to the station and intercept them. Stop them if you can, but prioritize gathering information in this encounter. I’ve told the studio to expect you.”

“Got it,” Goro said, setting his notebook in his bag. This was worth getting interrupted for. After grabbing a few other items, he headed out to catch the train.

With some headphones and a quick search, he found the signal hijacking that was mentioned. It was supposedly some actor who had died, reading the calling cards to the Hashimotos and adding onto them. The message even named the leader of the Phantom Thieves: Joker. For these targets, they were going after some hidden culture of sex and drugs that affected lives and careers. Kyoko was accused as an active abuser, while Kenzo was accused of being hateful, ignoring the abuses going on under him, and trying to brainwash others through the television signals. Neither were teachers; both were abusing their power, though Kenzo might be debatable. Any connection to Kamoshida or Madarame that Goro could think of on the train ride were weak for arguments.

The police already had officers outside the studio, keeping gawking spectators at bay. A detective was discussing matters with studio workers, to convince them to leave the calling cards up until they’d taken pictures and made observations. Once Goro cleared himself for being here, he looked over the cards too. More copies, but it looked like the original would have the printed stickers. The design was the same as for Madarame. That may have been decided upon as a final design; it was more professional than the Kamoshida card. Here, the cards for Kenzo and Kyoko were paired up, set up in a staggered pattern. Likely it was so spectators noticing one would notice the other.

Inside, the waiting area was roped off due to more calling cards. A group was gathered by a set of red doors to be a live audience; they must have been told to leave the waiting area. He needed somewhere alone to check with the Navigator and so asked if there was an office or room not being used. Thankfully, there was an office on the first floor where the person had gone home early. Goro requested a search for Kenzo Hashimoto’s Palace; they were often around a person’s workplace or home, if they existed.

‘Requested Palace does not exist,’ the female voice of the Navigator said.

“It should be there,” Goro mumbled to himself. He put the name back in, just in case he’d misspelled it.

‘Requested Palace does not exist.’

“Then what about the wife?” he asked, putting in Kyoko’s name.

‘Requested Palace does not exist.’

“Are there any Palace here?”

‘Searching.’ It took a few minutes, during which he took out his notebook to write a few things down. ‘Six Palaces located; eight Palace buds are also associated with this location.’

Checking over the list, the Hashimotos weren’t even listed among the buds. There were… search the studio staff… directors, another producer, various staff members, and some actors. “How are those Palaces?”

‘Scanning… warning! There is a high degree instability in the Metaverse in this location. Take caution in exploring any Palace here.’ All of the Palaces and buds were labeled as unstable and liable to collapse.

“Is this someone else who can cause temporary instabilities?” he wondered aloud. “Or perhaps they send the calling card after making their theft. Or maybe even… I’d like to summon the Shadows of Kenzo Hashimoto and Kyoko Hashimoto.”

‘Shadows of requested persons are unavailable.’

“Unavailable? Were they destroyed?”

‘Cannot confirm such destruction. Targets cannot be located.’

Now what? “Scan location for other Persona users,” Goro asked. At the same time, he summoned Loki. “There should be another player in the area; help me find them.”

“Hmmm…” Loki scratched his chin.

The navigator answered first. ‘Cannot locate other Persona user.’

“Right,” Loki said. “Nothing stands out.”

“Could it be that they’re weak and don’t stand out for that reason?” Goro asked, frowning to himself.

“Hmm…” Loki went to a window and looked outside. After a minute, he shook his head. “Can’t pick out anything unusual, nor anyone with supernatural power.”

“What about the Palaces? I know Kenzo had one; there was that weird request to deliver the shell to his Shadow. Now his Palace isn’t there, nor Kyoko’s, and every other Palace is unstable. It’s odd.”

“The leaders of this studio were threatened,” Loki said. “Perhaps it will be like taking a keystone from an arch, and all the other Palaces will come crashing down.” He cackled at the thought.

“Can we get to their Palace if the navigator can’t find them?” Goro asked. “Or do they just not exist?”

After cracking his neck, Loki grinned. “I can get you there. We’re looking at Kenzo’s?”

“Right.”

“Then let’s go.” He snapped his fingers.

The usual waviness surrounded them, bringing Goro and Loki into the middle of ruin. The studio had been reduced to rubble? There weren’t even cognitions around, just silence. Taking out his card, Goro transformed into Ultrablack. This was unusual. Other players would take advantage of Palaces, for money and training. But none had gone so far as to destroy Palaces. With these Phantom Thieves under Joker, though, they had taken out four Palaces now.

Loki settled on a large piece of rubble, bringing one knee up to his chest. “Hey, there’s no Treasure around. No other player either.”

“Then they’ve already done their theft,” Ultrablack said, then kicked at the rubble. “Dammit! The card might be the last part of their tactics, to bring attention to what they do.”

“There is somebody,” the Persona said, pointing up to the sky.

Up above them, there was a red-winged angel looking over the ruins. The angel looked back, then descended. “There’s nothing left here; you’d best leave.”

“Wait, who destroyed this Palace?” Ultrablack asked. “We’re looking for them.”

“That’s not for me to say,” the angel said. “Nor for you to hear at this time. There’s nothing extraordinary here anymore; it will revert to normal in a few days. If we stick around, we’d be wasting our time.”

“Not if I find out more information on the Phantom Thieves,” Ultrablack said. “Though it’d be easier if you just told me what you know.”

“The easy way is not the best way,” the angel said. “I’m giving you enough help by warning you that there is nothing here to find. Goodbye.” The angel then vanished.

“I wouldn’t listen to an angel,” Loki said, flipping off the location that the angel had been.

“I don’t believe them,” Ultrablack said, starting to search around.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find any more information on his search. He recalled what he’d heard from Lars… he and this Joker (who was probably the main player of their team) were on parallel tracks, never to meet. Was there something to that? Or did he have to figure out their target much earlier to have a chance at intercepting them?

* * *

Young Occultists Message Board

currycat: Topic: Jack Frost is one of the cutest demons around. See image. Discuss.

Suzydoll: Nooooo! Pyro Jack is waaay cuter and way cooler! Just look at him!!!

Froslass4: Well Jack Frost is literally cooler than Pyro.

currycat: I got nothing against Pyro; he is cute. But Jack Frost is mascot material and very cute.

Suzydoll: Pyro Jack is definitely better mascot material! I’d pick him any day.

Alibaba: They’re both cute… but Jack Frost can turn into King Frost, and Black Frost, and Demonee-hoo! Pyro can’t do that.

currycat: And Frost Ace, don’t forget him.

Suzydoll: That means that Pyro Jack is unique and special.

Chou read over Suzy’s latest message and chuckled. Others in the Young Occultists were looking things up about Jack Frost and Pyro Jack in order to add to the discussion. Whoever that Alibaba was, they were well informed; Chou only knew what she did from finding information on an old comic book series. Now, what more could she post to keep the discussion going without obviously stoking the flames?

Before she could figure that out, she got a message from Futaba. ‘Hey, you also currycat on the Young Occultist board?’

This was a good chance, she thought. ‘Yeah, are you on the board too?’

Futaba: Maybe.

Futaba: Not telling!

Chou: Boo, why not?

Futaba: mwe-hee-hee!

Chou: You’re a troll.

Futaba: you too :)

Futube: Though why start an argument over Jack demons? They’re all cute.

Chou: Not telling!

Futaba: Whaaaa?

Chou: Heh.

Futaba: shoulda seen that one coming.

Chou: Though part of the reason was I was bored.

Futaba: That explains things.

Chou: What’re you up to with the Young Occultists? They want to start a branch in Shujin.

Futaba: Are you going to start a club?

Chou: Not me, but I hope my friend gets it approved.

Futaba: I have some interest in the occult.

Futaba: have you heard of cognitive psience?

Futaba: prolly not

Chou: I have.

Futaba: Whaaaaaa?!?!?!

Chou: Really.

Chou: A doctor I know talked about it; she looked into it, but didn’t pursue psychology.

Futaba: Does she have any reports or stuff about it?

Chou: No.

Chou: She said that anything about it would be restricted to technical medical journals with the university she and the cognitive psience researcher were working for.

Chou: It did sound pretty cool, though I only know the general idea.

Futaba: Well that’s a pity, cause it is cool!

Chou: She did say it should have revolutionized psychological therapy.

Futaba: yeah

Futaba: Who is this doctor? My mom was the main researcher of cognitive psience.

Seeing that, Chou paused to glance over at the bed where Morgana was curled up. “Hey.”

“Mmm, what?” she asked, stretching her legs before lifting her head.

“Futaba’s mother was the cognitive psience researcher Dr. Takemi mentioned,” she said while replying to Futaba. ‘Dr. Tae Takemi. She has a clinic right here in Yongen-Jaya.’

“Oh, that science about the Metaverse?” Morgana asked, now interested.

Chou nodded. “Yes. Seems like she understands it some, though maybe not entirely.”

“Interesting, might be useful later.” She stretched again and curled back up. “Don’t be up too late. We did a lot and you have school tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” she said, decided to go ahead and log out of the Young Occultist site. She could always stir the discussion back up tomorrow if it died off.

But Futaba was still interested in chatting. ‘Hmm, I see.’

Futaba: If you’re with the Young Occultists, you know about the Phantom Thieves, right?

Chou: Yeah, they’re really cool!

Futaba: They are. And they must be using cognitive psience!

Futaba: They talk about dreams and making people confess their sins.

Chou: And cognitive psience was about addressing psychological problems through some kind of metaphysical method, right?

Chou: At least, that’s what I understood from the little I heard.

Futaba: yup yup, that’s it!

Futaba: The Young Occultists and other occultist groups are aiming to prove to the general public that things like demons really exist.

Futaba: These dreams exist on other layers of reality, through the cognitions of the world from everyone in the world.

Chou: So the Phantom Thieves and your mother had some way to access those layers of reality?

Futaba: Well I don’t know about how far Mom took the metaphysical part of the research.

Futaba: But the Phantom Thieves must, given what they’ve done.

Futaba: Though that doesn’t explain everything I’m reading about them.

Chou: Their calling cards can appear out of thin air, seemingly.

Futaba: Yeah, they’re a good argument for the potential of occult power. I wonder how they found out about it.

Futaba: and who all they would listen to

Chou: They solve a lot of problems, big and small.

Chou: And they help a lot of victims. Were you thinking of sending in a request?

Futaba: it’s just psientific curiosity! :P

Futaba: though I would like to know more.

Chou: There’s plenty of stories online about them, especially on their fansite.

Chou: Sorry, but I really should go to bed soon. Don’t want to be late to school.

Futaba: Okay, we can chat later.

Futaba: Good night!

Chou: Good night.

* * *

In separate secure hospital rooms, Kenzo and Kyoko Hashimoto slept soundly thanks to some relaxants. Both were attached to scanners watching over their neurological patterns. Things seemed normal while the drugs were active. It was even normal with special equipment that monitored the Metaverse. According to that, no one had tampered with their layers of the Metaverse since the government agent had been searching Kenzo’s cognition. Some extra security should prevent anyone from going into their dreams from outside the rooms. But then again, it was uncertain technology.

The night wore on; the relaxants wore off. Both Hashimotos remained deeply asleep. But according to the scans, their brain activities were changing. Areas related to memory became more active while other parts remained in sleep patterns. It didn’t seem abnormal at first. After an hour, though, it became clear that their stress levels were increasing. The doctor who checked in on them noted that it was a pattern of nightmares. However, the Metaverse monitors showed no activity at all.

Kyoko woke up in a cold sweat sometime in the middle of the night. It was a familiar feeling, waking up scared, alone, and helpless after being humiliated. Except this time, she saw herself as the monster. Her normal defending thoughts didn’t come around. No, this wasn’t normal. No, this could have been stopped. She had made the world worse for all that she had done. Others weren’t stepping stones or fans, or enemies. They were victims and she felt like she could never forget their suffering.

What could she do?

Atone; confess to your sins.

But how could she fix what she had broken? Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she could only show her humiliation for the rest of her life.

And maybe… Councilman Shido needed to fall. Someone had to reveal his corruption. She knew what he had done. But once she confessed, she’d be jailed. She deserved it, but she’d given her word to do something about Shido.

There were people who could get messages out. She just needed to record something soon and get it out quickly, before Shido could clamp down on any communications. And her phone was right in view. That should be enough.

The nurse came in then, wanting to check up on her. Both the hospital and the police wanted to interview her. Of course. Excusing herself as needing to think things over, she only agreed to the doctor’s interview. The police would have to be spoken with, but not until she’d gotten her message out.

It might take all of her acting skills just to get through such a public confession and accusation, but it had to be done.

* * *

Iron bars clanged shut, stirring Chou in her dreams. Was she dreaming? Probably…

“Be careful,” a girl said near her. A small hand nudged her shoulder. “Especially now.”

“What about now?” she asked sleepily, blinking and trying to get a good look around. There were signs of being in a cell, from the uncomfortable bed to the feel of a chain by her ankle. But her look around showed that the prison wasn’t fully there.

There was a ghostly girl at her side; the pins in her hair showed that this was the butterfly girl from months ago. “You’ve angered the Game Master; we can’t lose track of them until they’re vulnerable. Don’t let them rage quit now.”

“What about Philemon?” she asked, sitting up.

“It might help, but keep the Game Master interested, please,” she asked, fading further. “I just hope that you don’t suffer for this.”

“I’ll do my best,” Chou said quietly.

The prison of the Velvet Room got itself together. To Third Eye, there was a hostility to the air. Chou swung her legs over the side and stayed there as Igor and the twins materialized in. This had to be about the Palaces. She’d figured she could be cheeky, but if the goal was to keep the master interested until they could strike… hmm…

He was angry enough that he didn’t even give Caroline or Justine a moment to talk. “What is going on?” Igor asked sharply.

“You’re calling on me in my dreams,” she said, not able to resist some cheekiness. She went over to the bars. “What’d you call me in for?”

“Why did you make Kenzo Hashimoto a target?” Igor asked. “He wasn’t meant to be your target.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“He wasn’t meant to be one!”

Chou shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that? You said that the players of your Game were to use everyone in Tokyo, right?”

That caught him off-guard, making him rub his chin.

“Kenzo and Kyoko were negatively influencing nearly everyone in Tokyo,” Chou went on. “They’re also direct supporters of Shido; stealing his Treasure is now my main objective. Since I can’t do that yet, I’m making Shido’s position unstable by knocking off his supporters. But I’m still operating in Tokyo with people who live and work in Tokyo. As far as I could see, it was still within the guidelines of your Game. What’s so special about Kenzo?”

“He wasn’t in the plans,” Igor said, although he seemed to realize the problem. Perhaps he just didn’t want to admit it. Justine and Caroline were looking at each other, then her and Igor; perhaps they were thinking something over.

“I don’t know the plans, so how was I supposed to know things in them?” Chou said.

“Your path was clear before you,” he replied, still thinking.

“We checked out several Palaces,” she said. “Most were too tough for us, or there was an obstacle right at the gate. The Hashimotos had Palaces we could find, enter, and explore on the power we have. That was the clear path to take.”

“I think the problem is that you were impatient,” Igor said. “The path was waiting for the right time to open.”

“Was it waiting for Makoto Niijima to do something stupid?” Chou asked. “Cause I don’t want to let that happen.”

“How do you know about that?” he asked, now curious.

She shrugged. “I got a hint that she might. But just a hint, from my Fool confidant. They’ve got good info, it seems.”

“Perhaps, but who are they?” Igor said, starting to relax again. Good.

“Can’t say,” she said. “They are a confidant, after all. I can’t betray their secrets.”

He shrugged at that. “Fair enough. But it’s also fair that if you’re going to strike out on your own, you should do things on your own. You were given some Confidants for free, basically, but they are not in the same situation now. They don’t know who you are, so now they will no longer count as confidants.” He snapped his fingers.

And something else snapped, very loud in Chou’s ears. “What?”

“Consider it a negative in taking out Kenzo’s Palace, since it didn’t need to be done,” Igor said. “But the true path is the one of least resistance. You’ll fall onto it before long.”

“Master?” Justine asked, puzzled enough to speak up. “She needs the power of those confidants…”

“Then she’ll have to forge them anew,” Igor said.

This could be a problem… or another level of challenge. Smirking across at Igor, Chou said, “Yeah, no worries. Expect the unexpected and it’ll get entertaining.”

“Don’t get contrary enough that you die, but carry on,” Igor said, waving her away and ending the dream.

She still needed to summon Philemon into the Velvet Room somehow. But as long as Igor couldn’t track her well, she could make it work.

* * *

“Hey.” Iron bars were rattled, stirring him in his dream.

Goro found himself in a narrow jail cell, in his dream. “It’s been a while,” he said, sitting up. He’d not confirmed it, but he suspected that the violet-tinged darkness beyond the bars was a deep area of Mementos. While he’d not explored this far, there was a humid rush of wind outside the cell that was like that dungeon.

“It has,” the warden outside his cell said. Felix had his usual gear of a large sketchpad and a bag stuffed with pencils. Despite being an artist, one of his eyes was a dark blue crystal. “You could come here anytime, you know.”

“The costumes you design are versatile, so I haven’t had need of another,” Goro said. “Is that all you called me here for?”

He shook his head. “Nope. The master called on me to pass on a message. Just that; it’s been a long while since I’ve seen him either.” He shrugged.

“So what’s this message?” Goro knew a little bit about Felix; he wasn’t that interesting aside from his ability to turn art into clothes that complimented a Persona’s power. The most pertinent information he’d given so far was that his master was the Game’s Master. If Felix had a message to deliver, it was probably important.

“There’s been a complication.” He shrugged again. “This Game is being played by humans, so complications should be expected. But the newest player has been unpredictable. I don’t think that’s newsworthy myself, but the Master wanted you to know that things will be uncertain and unknown.”

“You mean this Joker character has been giving the Game Master a hard time?” Goro asked. That was gutsy. But why was Joker so important that this warranted a message? “Who is he?”

“I dunno,” Felix said.

“Well what is Joker doing? Did he steal the Treasures of the Hashimotos?”

“I dunno,” he said, shrugging unhelpfully. “Guess you’d better not take Joker lightly.”

Rolling his eyes, Goro sat back on the prison cot. “You know, it’s that attitude that makes me not want to drop by just whenever. You’re only helpful when you feel like it.”

“Well what do you expect?” Felix asked, cocking his head to the side. “I’m a demon artist, not some sage or something. I can tell you stuff about demons and draw whatever. I could still be more helpful if you’d ask.”

“You don’t know about my opponent, so there’s nothing that you can help with right now,” he said. “Unless you could tell me more information about Joker and the Phantom Thieves.”

“They’re not demons,” he replied.

“Still not helpful,” Goro said. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“I can give you a good answer, if you give me a good question,” Felix said, briefly looking hurt at the dismissal. But after a moment, his usual odd indifference returned. “Well, suit yourself. Please come back when you need my art, or an answer to a good question.”

Felix was probably the most useless of the ‘help’ that Goro had been given for the Game, at least past creating his costumes. He might find more help out of that Lars person. But if none of his costumes helped in defeating Joker and Shido, perhaps he might return. Goro just didn’t expect to see Felix any time soon.

* * *

6/9

Before she even went downstairs for breakfast, Chou checked on her Confidant list to see the damage. It was troubling in some ways, puzzling in others.

 **Fool:** Arsene Lupin  
 **Magician:** Morgana  
 **High Priestess** : Makoto Niijima(NULL)  
 **Empress** : _Haru Okumura_ (NULL)  
 **Emperor:** Yusuke Kitagawa(NULL)  
 **Heirophant** : Sojiro Sakura  
 **Lovers** : Ann Takamaki(NULL)  
 **Chariot** : Ryuji Sakamoto(NULL)  
 **Justice** : ???  
 **Hermit** : _Futaba Sakura_ (NULL)  
 **Fortune:** Chihaya Mifume  
 **Strength** : Justine & Caroline  
 **Hanged Man** : Munehise Iwai  
 **Death:** Tae Takemi  
 **Temperance** : Sadayo Kawakami  
 **Devil:** Ichiko Ohya  
 **Tower:** ???  
 **Star** : ???  
 **Moon** : Yuuki Mishima  
 **Sun:** Toranosuke Yoshida  
 **Judgment** : ???  
 **World** : N/A

Morgana yawned audibly near her. “Mm, good morning, Chou,” she mumbled.

“Morning,” she said. “There’s a problem.”

“Hmm, what’s up?” she asked, doing her best to wake up.

“Taking out those two Palaces has annoyed the Game Master,” she explained. “So he nullified a group of my Confidants as punishment.”

“Huh? But don’t your Personas get power from them?” Morgana sat up and twitched her whiskers.

“Yup,” Chou said, setting her phone on the bed so Morgana could see. “Not all of them were nulled, and it’s curious which ones were nulled. He told me to forge new confidants as replacements. I think I can do that, but it could slow things down a bit.”

“We should probably take it easy anyhow, but that’s awful.” She put a paw on her leg. “Does that mean you lost a bunch of friends?”

She shook her head. “I doubt that, just that I lost the power boost their connection gave me.”

“I hope they’re still friends,” Morgana said.

“And check out who was cut,” Chou said, tapping her phone. “It’s my school friends, but not all of them since Yuuki’s still there. I hadn’t even made a Confidant link to Haru or Futaba, but they’re listed now anyhow. And Futaba’s not at Shujin; neither is Yusuke. I wonder why those six got nulled.”

“Huh, I can’t tell why those six,” she said. “But I’m still there! And you still had some empty links. You know, I don’t like this Game Master person if he’d do that to you.”

“There should be some connection with that group,” she said. “But it’s something to keep in mind as we move forward. I’m not going to give up on the former Confidants even if I find new ones.” She got up to get dressed and ready.

Due to the trip, they had been directed to head for the station nearest to their destination. For Chou, Ann, and Shiho, that meant going to Suidobashi. Ms. Kawakami was one of those going along. She checked over who’d arrived on time, then said, “We’ve had a request from the studio to be careful. There was an incident yesterday and the police are still investigating. Since they’ve graciously allowed us to keep our appointment today and tomorrow, please respect the studio’s request not to make a big deal about it.”

“What happened?” Ann asked quietly.

Fortunately, Shiho knew. “The Phantom Thieves targeted the head producer and his wife yesterday, even hijacked the live news with a message supposedly from an actor who died last weekend.”

“Whoa, really?” Ann asked, her eyes wide.

“The internet was buzzing with that news yesterday evening,” Chou said. “I got worried that the studio might cancel this trip on us.”

“I don’t like being told to keep quiet,” Shiho said with a small frown. “Reminds me of Kamoshida and the principal. But we’re just visitors, so I suppose there’s not much to say.”

“Right, but what did the Phantom Thieves target the two of them for?” Ann asked.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Kawakami said, leading them out of the station.

Keeping with her friends as they headed out, Chou said, “There was apparently something about granting sexual favors for acting roles.”

“Really?” Ann asked, shocked and getting hushed for it.

Shiho nodded. “And something about drugs and brainwashing people with television signals. It was crazy, whether it gets confirmed or not.”

“Well it gives me second thoughts about working for this studio, if the chance comes up,” Ann said.

The studio was doing their best to give off an impression of ‘just another day’ to them as visiting students. But the staff members were uncertain and intimidated. One cameraman started to hit on Ann creepily, but was quickly rebuked by one of his coworkers. Despite the disruption, the whole tour was simple and obvious. Their guide spoke of sponsors and schedules like she was explaining things to elementary school students, not high school students. It was even more mind-numbing than school lectures on subjects she knew about. There was some satisfaction in seeing early results, but otherwise this trip didn’t seem worth it.

When they were dismissed, the police and staff wanted them to leave the building promptly. “Maybe we should have picked one of the other trips,” Ann said.

Shiho nodded, giving a yawn. “Seriously, didn’t learn anything today. But we get to be an audience to a show tomorrow so that should be good?”

“’Today’s Hottest Meet and Greet’ might be interesting, depending on the guests,” Ann said. “So, what now? I should be home for dinner, but that’s still a couple of hours away.”

“We could stop by the amusement park,” Shiho suggested.

“Or a spa since it’s all us girls,” Chou suggested, as something that she’d noticed in the neighborhood.

“Oo, tough choice,” Ann said, making a play at thinking hard.

“Did you have a place in mind?” Shiho asked, amused at it. “It usually not my kind of thing, but I am curious.”

She nodded and patted the strap of her schoolbag. “I have this card for cat-friendly businesses and there’s a cat spa neighboring a regular spa around here.”

“What’s a spa?” Morgana asked, popping out of the bag.

“You spoil your cat rotten,” Ann asked, smiling at that.

“Hey, she is spoiled sweet and takes good care of me,” Chou said. “So I’ll do the same back.”

Shiho giggled. “Morgana deserves it for keeping well-behaved in school every day. How much is this going to cost, though?”

“I can pay for you, don’t worry,” Ann said. “We could all use some pampering, so why not?”

“You don’t have to,” Shiho said, blushing a little.

“It’s fine, I can count it as a business expense,” Ann said.

“I like how you think,” Chou said. “I can pay for Morgana and myself because of the card, so how about it? Head to the spa?”

“Sure, we’ll give it a try,” Shiho said. “Thanks, Ann.”

“No problem.”

The spa was called Pawse for Purrfection, in one store for cats and a bigger store for humans. Ann talked Shiho into taking a facial and manicure while Chou went in with Morgana to get her a shampoo and pedicure. While Chou was sure Morgana would be fine on her own, the staff expected that a new cat would need some coaxing from their owner. Once Morgana proved that she would work nicely with the groomer, Chou went over to get her own treatment. It felt really good, and she could joke around with her friends (mostly about making a tomboy like Shiho pretty).

Ann and Shiho hung around while she was getting her facial finished off, but both left shortly after. Chou went over to pick up Morgana from the cat rest condo, a caged area with carpeted cat trees and fluffy beds. “You know, I totally could have picked this lock,” Morgana said as she came out.

“Thanks for not,” Chou said quietly. “How was it?”

“It was amazing!” Morgana said, following her over to the counter. “Once she knew I wasn’t shy, the lady massaged my paws, and the shampoo smells so wonderful. I bet I look a hundred times better, though I’m always stylish.”

“You do look very nice,” Chou said, making the clerk there smile.

In the meantime, a man who’d come in from the back stopped near them. “Oh, isn’t this Morgana? A mysterious waif found at a school.”

“Hey, it’s the vet,” Morgana said, looking up at him.

“Yes, she’s doing well,” Chou said to him.

“It seems so,” he said, crouching down to look over Morgana. She came closer to him, even held still when he looked over her ears.

Chou paid for their spa visits, then stepped aside for another customer. “You’re Dr. Okabe, right?”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, then rubbed Morgana’s head before standing up. “You’re taking good care of her; that’s good.”

“She helps me out every day,” Chou said. “Especially this week; I’m taking her out to Fisher’s Delight too.”

“They’re a good place, and know what fish are healthy,” Dr. Okabe said, then finally looked at her. “Er, do you have plans over the summer? Our shelter will have some community service positions open starting next month. As long as I remember that you’re Morgana’s friend; she proves that you’re good with cats.”

She needed to find new Confidants; she already was watching for a good opportunity to talk with Shiho for that. Through Third Eye, she saw that Dr. Okabe fell under a Hermit arcana. It was hard to say if he was an outcast of society, but he seemed like a possibility. “Sure, I’ll see if I can make time,” Chou said.

Okabe had his bag open, searching for and finding a flier. “Good, then here, this will give you the information. And, uh, you’ll want to check in with the shop about when exactly they open up. I don’t remember, just that they’re summer positions for high school students.”

“Will do.” She let Morgana back into the bag, then headed out. “He might fill one of the confidants I lost,” she said once out on the street.

“That’s good, so what about the other five?” she asked, resting her paws on Chou’s shoulder.

“I’ve got some ideas. For now, though, sushi.”

“Yes, sushi! We’re successful beautiful phantom thieves, so now’s the time to relax and enjoy ourselves.”

Chou chuckled, glad no one else could understand Morgana. “We are the femme fatales, though we’re the heroes instead of being framed up as villains.”

“Oo, does that mean we’ve got some handsome clever detective as our villain?” She even poked her head out to ask this.

“How do you know that trope?” she asked, glancing back as she slowed down.

“I know stories of phantom thieves and mysteries,” Morgana said proudly. “It must be part of how I know so much. Though the detective doesn’t need to be handsome; they just need to be clever, but not clever enough to catch us.

“If we’re talking a handsome detective, I can think of one working around Tokyo,” she said.

“Really? Who? We need to be prepared.”

“That Akechi guy. I mean, I don’t care for him, but he’s gaining plenty of admirers.”

It was an enjoyable evening: dining on sushi with Morgana, trying again to meet Sojiro’s standards in coffee, then relaxing in the bathhouse to finish things off. But soon, she’d need to figure out how to balance her confidants, friendships, school, and work to not overwhelm herself. There was so much to do and get done.

Though in the end, her goal for the Game was still clear.

* * *

Looking into the Phantom Thieves was interesting. There was so much unknown about them that they were true phantoms. Although there were few stories of their actions, there were many many stories about the results of their actions. Criminals who suddenly grew a conscious and confessed to their crimes. Bullies who realized they were awful. Abuse victims released from their abuse and shame. The Phantom Thieves were living incarnations of karma.

A living incarnation of karma… Futaba liked that idea. She’d tried being that herself, at least with computers. Being Medjed had been fun for a while, acting as a ghost in the system and eliminating evil. Then others started using the Medjed name too. It had been a thrill at first, confirming her justice. Unfortunately, the other Medjeds weren’t as interested in justice. They stole money and ran scams under the name she’d chosen. The first time, Futaba had tracked down the impostor and got back at them. That took a lot of time and effort; it didn’t seem worthwhile as more and more of Medjed appeared. She should be disconnected from the name completely now, without records.

Would the Phantom Thieves give up at some point? Or would they keep doing good work. And perhaps… could they help her? Though they probably had lots of dangerous targets; they wouldn’t be interested in helping her. Unless she could contact them and offer them her computer expertise? There were people who asked for her help without even knowing who she really was. Surely she could be of use… though did she deserve it when she’d stopped her own heroics?

Did she deserve to live? But she wanted to live… but her mother had wanted her dead. What should she do?

She wanted to distract herself. Thinking that, Futaba spotted a new video. Kyoko Hashimoto, recently targeted by the Phantom Thieves, had a video titled Confession. Then they’d succeeded again; this should be good. The video seemed to be filmed in a hospital, given the equipment barely in view by the patient bed. Although Kyoko was an actress known to be glamorous, here she was with barely combed hair and no makeup. There was something unsettling to her expression; was that what people called haunted?

Kyoko did her best to keep a steady voice, though her words trembled at times. “I am Kyoko Hashimoto and I have sinned gravely. I am here to confirm the accusations made against me by the Phantom Thieves. When I first started acting, I was pulled into a corrupt system of sexual favors, blackmail, and drugs. I was a victim at first, but then I began victimizing others. People have died because of me, often because I meant to eliminate or subjugate them. Years ago, I was told that stardom required sacrifices, and I was willing to make sacrifices of other people.

“The truth is, Toya Jochi died because he was resisting the corrupt system we had and was a potential leak to our secrets. And he died on Friday, well before his voice appeared this Wednesday to condemn myself and my husband. It was not something he’d recorded; I don’t believe it was something manufactured with clips either. I know his voice and that was him. It is entirely possible it was his ghost because he could have spoken from the realm of dreams. Or more accurately, the Metaverse.”

“Huh?” Futaba felt a chill on her skin hearing that. “How do you know?”

“It is complicated to speak of, but it is generally a realm of dreams, for everyone,” Kyoko said, trembling some in pushing herself to continue. “When the Phantom Thieves speak of stealing desires, I’m not sure what exactly they mean, but I know it would be possible through the Metaverse. I cannot deny my sins now; it is real and I will not be able to forget the suffering of my victims. But even before this week, I knew about the Metaverse and cognitive psience. The accusation that my husband attempted to brainwash everyone who watched our station is also true.

“At the beginning of the year, we were contacted by a group of politicians led by Masayoshi Shido. He wanted us to add subliminal messages enforced by a system in the Metaverse that would keep the general public subdued and complacent. It was not to improve or care for Japan, but in order to take control of everyone and make everyone submit to his will. Masayoshi Shido in particular has been controlling the police, much of the Diet, and us in the media through many corrupt means of his own. He’ll use blackmail and bribery to get his way, even turn to criminals to take care of dirty business.

“When he hears of what I say, I’m sure he’ll do his best to delete this message entirely. I would not be surprised if I die or end up imprisoned before long. I would deserve it, but he does not deserve to get away with this. I knew that, but I ignored it to maintain my own fame and image. While speaking the truth about him and the Metaverse will not make up for my sins, I hope the truth I reveal gets out and stops the cycle of abuse and acceptance of abuse that has carried on for much too long.

“I have failed as a person and will spend the rest of my life in shame and atonement.” The message then ended.

“How did this Shido guy learn about cognitive psience?” Futaba asked quietly, unnerved by this. That was her mother’s specialty; all of her research had vanished, except maybe those scholarly journals that Chou mentioned. Maybe those journals? Or maybe, he could have something to do with the theft of that information?

If so… then keeping Kyoko’s confession available was important. It’d be a headache to do, because this was somebody who could make an important scientific breakthrough vanish. Surely somebody else could do something as simple as copying a video and spreading it around. But if this Shido was involved with the missing research, she should do something now to prevent more information from being lost.

“This had better be worth it,” Futaba said, grabbing the video to download and post to other sites. It had to do with the Phantom Thieves and more people would be talking about them. Other people would search and help keep this confession alive.

She hoped that was so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, another twist! It means that this story will have some original Confidant links beyond Arsene stealing Fool from Igor. And a little hint... all the replacement Confidants have already shown up in the story.


	46. Reverse Knight of Cups

6/10

In the morning, Morgana decided to stay at Leblanc for the day. “We don’t have a reason to scout the studio now, and I’d be stuck all day in the bag again. At least at school, I can hang out in your desk and listen to lectures.”

Chou nodded. “Sure, but I still have to go. I have Takemi’s trial this afternoon, so I’ll be back when she lets me.”

“All right, then can you leave this window open?” She hopped up on the window seat and looked down. “I can get in and out with the stairs here, and I might go check out Mementos from the station here.”

“Don’t be too reckless,” she said, opening the window a little more.

“I’ll be fine,” Morgana said. “You don’t be reckless either with that show.”

“Gotcha,” Chou said, rubbing Morgana’s head before heading downstairs for breakfast. “Good luck.”

“Same to you!”

As usual, Sojiro was downstairs preparing for his day. He had the TV on, playing the morning news currently. It took a moment, but she noticed that it was on a different channel. “Did you decide to change things up?” she asked.

“Hmm?” He glanced over at the TV. “Oh, yes. I was warned that the other station was in trouble. It might be something, or it might not. Until things settle down, I figured it’s better to change the channel unless one of the customers wants the usual.”

“That studio is where my social studies trip is,” Chou said.

“Really?” Sojiro asked, some worry in his eyes.

She nodded. “They told us to be careful with questions and not spread gossip about the station. But they said nothing about what they were worried about. Though I did hear that their head producer got a calling card from the Phantom Thieves.”

“Hmm, that would be trouble.”

After a minute, the newscaster said, “Last night, a video statement from Kyoko Hashimoto appeared online, in which she admitted to committing sexual abuse and murder over the years to keep her fame. The more shocking parts of the confession are that their station has had a system of blackmail and sexual favors going on for years, and that they attempted to use subliminal messages to control their viewers.”

“This news show is more sensationalist, so I don’t like it as much,” Sojiro said.

Chou was about to agree (although she liked that they were talking about it). Then the newscaster said, “The subliminal messaging program was apparently directed by Masayoshi Shido of the National Diet, through secret knowledge of a realm called the Metaverse.”

“Hmm.” Sojiro rubbed his chin, acting like that statement meant something more to him.

“That’s weird,” Chou said. “I thought subliminal messages didn’t really work.”

After a moment, he said, “I would say that this news show has gotten worse than when I last watched them. But the Metaverse?”

He spoke that like he knew something. “Do you have secret knowledge?” Chou asked.

Sojiro chuckled, although he still seemed concerned. “I might. I did work for the government in the past; still shouldn’t speak on some things. Oh right, I should let you know. You remember how I learned about you from one of my customers?”

“Yeah, what about them?” She hadn’t run into anyone familiar in Tokyo, not even vaguely.

“Well I hadn’t seen her in a while, so I asked around.” He sighed and shook his head. “She worked in public transportation as a bus driver. I learned not that long ago that she was a victim of one of those mental shutdown accidents. Crashed her bus straight into another one and died.”

“That’s awful.” Still, Chou wasn’t sure of who this friend was.

Sojiro nodded. “Right, and it’s strange too. She cared a lot about others, would worry over us and check up on people she knew. And she was an excellent driver; she was honored just last year with driving without any accidents for fifteen years. I hadn’t thought much about these psychotic breakdown incidents until I heard about her. But now I agree that something strange is going on. It shouldn’t be happening, whatever it is.”

Psychotic breakdowns… perhaps Ultrablack had something to do with those? Or another user of the Metaverse in this game? If Chou could get more information on the victims, she might be able to learn more about the perpetrator. Makoto’s sister was investigating them. But Sae seemed like a closed book. How to get information out of her…

* * *

Through political maneuvering, favors, and behind the scenes dirty work, Masayoshi Shido had claimed one of the best offices in the Diet building. Not the best; he was still working towards the place he deserved. Flattery, ‘gifts’, and pressure let him decorate it handsomely without spending anything from his own pocket. Anyone who walked in was impressed; they knew they were dealing with someone with true power. As they should. Life was ultimately a game. Once that was understood, the proper moves to win became clear.

There was also the Game itself, something God had told him that he deserved to win. Masayoshi was on the brink of winning that. At the start of this year, the only players left were himself and Akechi. He could destroy that boy at any time he wanted, as his standings in the real world were fragile. But his abilities in the Metaverse made him far too useful to get rid of just yet. If Masayoshi could get into the Metaverse himself and affect it, then he would win in a snap. Then Akechi would be a dangerous opponent rather than a suspicious ally.

Masayoshi would still win. It was inevitable.

At least… it had been inevitable. As of this morning, his victory suddenly wasn’t assured all because some bitch he didn’t even notice had spilled the beans about the Metaverse. “Find out who let her post that video and fire them,” he demanded over the phone.

“But sir…”

“You’ll be fired if you don’t comply,” he said, putting a mark by their name. He didn’t care who got fired as long as somebody at the police hospital did.

“Y-yes sir, we’ll take care of this.”

Once that was settled, he checked the clock. It should be a good time to keep pressure on his speech team. He called them in promptly from their meeting on how to settle this leak and the blow to his reputation that it represented. Ugh… this was infuriating. Masayoshi was meticulous about his public image. He could act as a perfect public servant, or he could pull at others to make him appear as one while doing whatever he liked. Either way was tiring. However, one way let him do what he liked and that was the way he’d always choose.

Besides, he was chosen by God. He wouldn’t tell anyone else about that, but Masayoshi knew that he was special. Even this leak would be overcome. That was destiny.

But these Phantom Thieves of Dreams could be trouble. His own dreams revealed that they were led by another player of the Game. In that case, this Joker was a new opponent. He must have forced that vain actress to be his bitch and take a shot at Masayoshi for him. However, Joker had also revealed himself in doing so. He would be squashed without delay.

At least, he’d like them to be squashed without delay. But the priority was taking countermeasures against that confession. Masayoshi had already given the orders to take the video down promptly and hush up the gossipy media. However, the sheep of the general public were enamored of stars. It was a useful tactic to know until a time like this, when a star spoke up out of line. Now Masayoshi couldn’t just erase her words. He had to neutralize them and make sure she would never be believed one bit. She ought to be ridiculed and humiliated too, before she got silenced forever. And he knew the kind of thugs who would love a chance like that. Smuggle her out and show her what hell really was… yes, that was worthy of the smear she’d tried to smear on him.

But for now, his people were arriving to discuss how to get out of this while looking good. He would win; that was destiny. But he wanted to make sure he was seen as a hero in the eyes of the stupid sheep. He had to be seen as who he was, the chosen of God.

And when he revealed that, everyone would know it was true.

* * *

As there was no notice otherwise, Chou headed out to the station at Suidobashi. Ms Kawakami was there. When everyone gathered, she reminded them that the studio had asked them not to say anything about the Hashimoto scandal. “This is especially important as they’ll be letting us watch the filming of one of their most popular shows,” she said. “Please listen to their instructions then. Although, do be careful if anyone invites you to do something after the trip is done. It’s not clear what the truth is, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

“It sucks that this all had to happen when we were visiting,” Ann said.

“Yes, it would’ve been better to know before,” Shiho agreed. “Though I hear that one of the show’s guests today is going to be that teen detective Akechi.”

“Him?” Ann asked. “I didn’t realize you were one of his fans.”

Shiho shook her head. “No, I was just curious. There’s a group of his fangirls in my class, but I’m not sure why they’re so into him.”

“Wasn’t he there when the police interviewed you after Kamoshida’s arrest?” Chou asked. “He was when they talked to me.”

“Huh, that was him?” Shiho shrugged. “I remember a boy with longish hair, but he seemed like he could be some generic pop star.”

“A generic star would still be a star,” Chou said. “Unimpressive, but would still get fans.”

“We’ll see if he moves beyond unimpressive here,” Shiho said.

The visit was more interesting beyond just the show too, as one of the editing room technicians talked about his work and let them mess around with some of the programs he used. He didn’t talk down to them either like the guide yesterday had. In fact, the studio workers were doing their best to be nice and friendly today. The nerves were still there as they were trying to pretend that they didn’t know things. But people had been talking about the scandal on the trains, from Kyoko’s confession to Toya’s message, even about the Metaverse and the Phantom Thieves. They still weren’t sure about believing it, but the word was out.

For the ‘Hottest Meet and Greet’ talk show, the female host chatted with them for a while about how they decided on guests and subjects, with a tangent about the set and wardrobe designs. She also pressed them to avoid discussing the Hashimotos during the show. “The executives are still discussing how to handle this situation, so we don’t have a company statement to give,” the hostess said, not giving away her own feelings. Third Eye showed that she was satisfied by something, perhaps the truth getting out.

For the show, the guests were a pastry chef, a baseball player, and the new detective prince in Goro Akechi. They were causal and shallow interviews for the most part, less about their roles and more about them as people. The chef had some interesting small bite stories about how he chose recipes; the baseball player talked about how statistics were now being used to determine how well a team worked together rather than just how each individual player fared (that could be interesting to bring up in tutoring sessions). Having seen this show live, Chou felt like this might be one she’d watch if the people were interesting. It wouldn’t be something she’d regularly watch, though.

Akechi, the host, and the hostess went right into talking about the Phantom Thieves while dodging the Hashimoto issue. “There’s been talk that the Phantom Thieves have been targeting a lot more people than the obvious victims,” the host said.

“Yes, there’s a group that they communicate with only through texts,” Akechi said. “It’s not as public with shaming, but it is just as devastating to those targeted. It’s a terrible form of blackmail that perverts the meaning of justice.”

“It’s blackmail that’s not as terrible as what these criminals are doing,” Shiho muttered quietly.

“You don’t talk like that much,” Ann said quietly.

“I would hope there’s not much reason to,” she said.

Meanwhile, the host had been discussing how frightening the sudden attacks were. “Some of these people were called out just for being bullies, nothing illegal. So you could get a text out of nowhere for a misunderstanding and end up treated like a criminal. That’s something no one deserves.”

“If they keep getting treated as heroes, these Phantom Thieves are going to go after anybody they disagree with,” Akechi said. “It shows historically as a pattern in these vigilante criminals.”

“Isn’t that a dangerous thing to say if you think that?” the hostess asked with some acted concern.

Akechi gave a smile to that. “Perhaps, but I mean to catch them in the act.” Third Eye showed that his confidence was no act. What did he know? Or what did he think he knew?

The hostess then got up with a microphone to let the audience ask questions. One guy wanted to know if there was anything they could do to protect themselves, like turning off your phone if you got a suspicious text. While someone lacking a phone and Palace would be a problem with sending the warning, once someone saw the warning, their Shadow could be found in Mementos. Akechi had to admit that since they didn’t know how the Phantom Thieves worked, there was no advice for how to avoid being targeted. A girl next asked if Akechi had any hobbies, to which he sheepishly admitted that solving mysteries had been his hobby until the police started seeking his assistance regularly. The next question was about his favorite movie. Easy stuff, all of which Akechi could spin in his favor without trying.

And then, perhaps because she was sitting by the aisle, the hostess stopped by Chou. “Do you have anything to ask Akechi-kun?”

Of course; there were things she’d love to ask, like about his Persona. But many of her questions would be red flags. However, he wasn’t being challenged and this session wasn’t as interesting as it could be. There was certainly something she could ask that would test his cool without seeming too suspicious.

Yes… she could strike a match and see if she lit a fire.

* * *

There was a group of Shujin students in the audience. That was interesting to Goro. After all, there was still some suspicion on someone connected to Shujin being in the Phantom Thieves. Their first big theft had been a Shujin teacher, after all. It would make sense if that one was something personal. Would they dare show up in this studio just after attacking the head producer and his wife? But it was just a portion of the second year students on a social studies trip. Unless it was a teacher, this may have been a coincidence.

Or, an opportunity to observe the chaos created and silently gloat over the victory. Goro couldn’t deny that he liked being asked to investigate a case that he caused. He loved seeing people panic and fret over what they’d done under his lead. While they usually weren’t connected to him, it felt good to punish others. There was always something distorted with people. No one was truly pure.

Other than the oddity to the Shujin students, this show was an easy way to reach the public. Many people watched this show and talked about it. Even Shido had used it a time or two to spread the information he wanted to be known. Although, now he was using Goro as a puppet here. It was annoying, but fine. Actually, it was more annoying that the Phantom Thieves had made Kyoko Hashimoto speak out against Shido. Shido had to be panicking, which admittedly was funny. But it wasn’t over something Goro had done. He would be the one to make that bastard fall!

But keep calm. For now, he had a relatively easy interview here with his fans in the audience. At least one had been primed with a question. Last time, all of the audience questions had been primed. Goro was sure he could answer something unprepared. His fans would have come to see him. Although as the hostess went among the Shujin students, he wondered what one of them might have to ask.

The hostess stopped by a short-haired girl in Shujin uniform. The audience was on the other side of the room; the girl seemed relaxed there, though it was hard to be sure. On being asked if she had something to ask, she nodded. “Sure. Since you’re determined to arrest the Phantom Thieves, what do you have to say to the victims saved by them?”

The whole room went tense at the question; somebody audibly gasped at it. The girl was looking right at him. Hmm, she was from Shujin and might know some of the victims. Or might even be one herself. That was a dangerous question trying to provoke him, one that he’d been warned about in case some muckraker from the media wanted to stir up trouble. Though in this case, it might be an honest question out of someone he did not want to offend.

Though if she was trying to provoke him, she was terrible and should be punished. She had to be answered so that he didn’t look bad. “It’s fortunate that they found justice, but there should be another way besides vigilantism,” he said. “Such criminals could be exposed in other ways, such as public testimony.”

“Then you’re putting the responsibility on the victims, who are told to keep quiet because nobody likes a complainer,” she said. “Or they’re threatened by their abuser to keep quiet. The Phantom Thieves have been listening to those who are being ignored. What would you suggest for people who are suffering with no one reaching out to them?”

The hostess by the girl said, “It is a terrible wrong that victims get ignored or blamed in today’s society.” What was her deal? She was supposed to be neutral.

“That’s true,” Goro said, since disagreeing would surely be a blemish. “I could see why some people see the Phantom Thieves as heroes for that. But they’re still subverting the law and giving their victims no chance to defend themselves. Criminals should be tried fairly, in court. Thinking you can take the law into your own hands is the creed of a tyrant.”

“True,” the girl said. “So what would you do for victims whose voices are silenced?”

“That is partly why I’ve pursued the path of a detective, to solve such injustices,” he said. “Although it’s clear that more must be done to save the lives of victims who can’t speak for themselves. Ignoring them is unacceptable.”

Fortunately, the host called for the segment to end. Goro wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up this debate in front of the camera. This was a subject that was best to consult with others about the fairest way to answer and seem sincere. That way, he could remain looking good in the public eye, and not deal with a crazy reputation blow like Shido had against him now. Though people who called attention to themselves as victims were often weak and self-centered; they’d destroy themselves to escape without thinking of the consequences. Goro would be strong and stand up for himself.

It did rub him the wrong way that this girl spoke up against him. Maybe he could change her point of view if he spoke to her himself? And if he didn’t convince her, there was always messing with her Shadow to change her tune. All that needed was getting her name.

Yes, he wasn’t about to let this go unpunished.

* * *

“Hey, my parents are looking for some last-minute help this afternoon for the show tomorrow,” Ann said after they were let go for the day. “Do you two want to come along? They’ll pay for the help, at least for others.”

“Sorry, I’ve got an appointment this afternoon,” Chou said, though she heard a chime from her phone as she said so.

“I’ve got the time,” Shiho said with a smile.

“Well I’ll be at the show tomorrow, so have fun,” Chou said, taking out her phone.

“I hope your appointment goes well,” Ann said.

After saying goodbye for the day, Chou checked her phone. The message was from Tae. ‘I have to cancel our trial for today; I haven’t had time to review the information so far.’

Seeing that made Chou wish that she’d checked before Ann and Shiho had left. Now what? But she felt a prodding from Matador; she could still help Tae today. ‘You got some other patients now? O-0’

Tae: Yes *sigh*

Tae: The father of that girl from last time has been telling everybody in the neighborhood that I’m some miracle worker with medicines.

Chou: Well you did solve a problem your former boss ignored.

Tae: I guess. But I’m no miracle worker.

Tae: Today, somebody asked me for a sweet-smelling compress for joint pain.

Chou: Can’t they look up the aromatherapy on that online?

Tae: Yes, although some aromatherapy can interfere with prescribed medications or other medical issues.

Tae: So checking with a doctor is prudent.

Tae: But then someone else asked me for a drug to cure a common cold.

Chou: I bet the world would love to know that.

Tae: Right, that kind of medicine would deserve a Nobel prize.

Chou: Is it nice to be popular?

Tae: Hmph, it’s a pain.

Tae: I’m registered as a general practitioner, yes, but my interests are still in medical development.

Tae: I had to take the title to get my own clinic.

Chou: Being a neighborhood doctor suits you too, I think.

Tae: Really?

Chou: Yes; you listen well and didn’t take the easy way out. And even though your focus was on the medical trial, you did take the time to help that girl.

Chou: After being prodded into it, but you did.

Tae: You’re a pain, you know that?

Chou: I try :)

Tae: But you remind me of an old friend, in more ways than one.

Chou: Another Persona user? *guesses*

Tae: You guessed right.

Tae: She cared about anybody she came across and nudged us all to care about others too.

Chou: That’s important.

Tae: True. Maybe at one time, I could’ve been happy just being a neighborhood doctor.

Tae: But I don’t like leaving a job undone either. This drug should help Miwa-chan now that it’s been through proper development.

Chou: She’s important too.

Tae: Right.

Tae: But now that I am popular for whatever reason, I have to rethink my schedule and make sure I have time for everything.

Chou: Right.

Chou: So next week is still on?

Tae: Yes, I hope so.

Tae: See you then.

Chou: Yup, see ya. And don’t overwork yourself.

Tae: I can take care of myself.

Tae: But thanks.

“Ah, you’re still here,” someone said cheerfully.

Chou looked up from the seat where she’d been texting. Not far from her, there was a group of puzzled girls because Akechi had left talking with them to come over to her. He had the kind of smile that the other girls were probably hoping he’d give them. What was this about? “Yes, what of it?” Chou asked.

Not frazzled by her attitude, he stopped by her and answered, “I wanted to thank you for making today’s show interesting. Also for giving me something to think over; I get a lot of support these days, but often times a theory does not grow unless confronted by a counter-theory, according to the principles of Hagel.”

Some of that seemed like references to sound really good. “A theory has no legs if it’s not tested,” Chou replied. “Although I was going by the internet troll principle today.”

“What?” he asked, honestly puzzled by that.

Smiling at him, she said, “Lay a trap and see if somebody walks straight into it to make things more interesting. Nobody was challenging you today and I like challenges, either for myself or others.”

Akechi laughed. “Ah, I see. I feel like speaking with you could be quite informative. Would you care to grab an early dinner with me? I have practice exams tomorrow so I don’t have long, but I would like to talk with you.”

The girls behind him shot jealous gazes at her. That would be infuriating to fangirls, Chou thought, seeing the person of your affection asking out someone who clearly wasn’t a fan. Declining him would be sensible, as they were enemies even if he didn’t realize it (or did he?). But then again, Chou had said herself that they were femme fatales now. She agreed with Shiho’s opinion that Akechi was generically cute, but this was no intense attraction like these fangirls. Though if he was honestly smart, he might make for good conversation.

“Sure, sounds good to me,” Chou said, putting her phone away before getting up.

“Great! I know a good place in this neighborhood.” Then he paused. “Let me speak a moment with the director, make sure they don’t need anything else for today.”

Not long after, they got a table at an Indian restaurant. Chou was tempted by the Indian curry they had, but she decided to try something different and ordered some pho instead. “Not entirely Indian, I see,” she said.

“Yes, but it is a good deal on good food,” Akechi said. “So Chou, you’re one of the Shujin students? How do you like it there?”

His arcana was that of Justice. Given that and how he spoke, he might shut her out if he learned of her probation too early. “We spoke about this before, didn’t we?” she asked.

“Huh?”

Keeping a smile in her mind and off her face, she shrugged. “Oh right, you left the interrogation early. I was one of those you and the two other police officers questioned in Shujin after Kamoshida’s arrest, the second-year transfer student.”

His eyes widened briefly at recognizing that. “Ah, that was you? I’m sorry, but I do meet a lot of people and that wasn’t a long interview.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Things are getting better. The people who defended Kamoshida before have gotten in trouble over it; the board even fired the principal. Maybe you heard about it, but both volleyball teams made it to the top Nationals game by working together without a coach. The school has had a better mood this past couple of weeks.”

“They fired the principal?” Akechi asked curiously.

Chou nodded. “He made the mistake of saying that the school was worse off for not having Kamoshida around; somebody overheard it and let others know. There is a need for discipline, I won’t argue that. But when people abuse a position of power, they don’t deserve to have it.”

“I agree,” he said. “I’ve had several investigations stopped cold just because someone with money was involved and didn’t want to be bothered.”

“And people tell you not to fight that, huh?” she guessed.

“They have,” he said, briefly looking bothered. Then he smiled. “Sometimes I can ignore them. One time, a business owner tried to bribe me to stop investigating a robbery at his store, claiming that the investigation should be over because they had a suspect in custody. I already thought there was something strange with the line of events, so when he wanted to keep me away, it confirmed my hunch. On checking the work schedules, I found some workers to interview about the robbery. They had all heard about the crime, but hadn’t witnessed it themselves.”

“Then the suspicion builds,” Chou said.

Akechi nodded. “I went back to check on the interviews and only the shop owner had any solid info on the robbery. From there, I found people who confirmed the suspect’s alibi and got him released. The store owner got furious. When I confronted him with the facts, he contradicted his previous testimony. I pointed that out and with some persistence, I got him to admit that he’d set up the robbery to scam the parent company. He would have put an innocent person in jail just for his own benefit.”

“That’s a really lame plan.”

“But everyone had accepted it as what must have happened.” He frowned. “I know it’s possible to be overworked and get lazy on something that seems simple, but it’s any detective’s responsibility to search out the truth. That counts for both police detectives and freelancers like myself.”

“Do you run into that laziness a lot?” she asked, watching him as he nodded. Listening should get him to keep talking. “It’s impressive that a freelance detective is doing better than the police.”

He smiled at that. “Well I do have a lot of challenges that the police detectives don’t have, mostly in terms of resources. I’ve been on my own for years and only recently got some guidance from an older detective. Although, I know an evidence technician who has been a big help. I can only tell so much on my own, but he can provide an in-depth analysis from many tests and has some good insights of his own. Like I had a case that I’d reached a block on, but I had some evidence the police didn’t…”

Akechi had a lot of stories about cases that he’d solved, some of which seemed intriguing. But he wouldn’t speak of many details. Like there was a murder case where something about the blood patterns and an old knife led him to make a suspect confess where the police couldn’t do the job. But he didn’t explain what about the evidence helped, or how he used it to make the suspect confess. Perhaps it was a part of his method? Because his stories were ending with how he confronted the suspect with logic and evidence to make them confess and wrap things up neatly.

A bit too neatly, maybe. “Do you make investigations with your school uniform on?” Chou asked after a back alley mugging murder story.

“Usually,” Akechi said, making sure the jacket was straight now that he was thinking of it. “Last year, the uniforms were the nicest pieces of my wardrobe. But I’ve improved myself a great deal through hard work and gaining notoriety.”

“That’s quite bold, to go into a back alley area with a potential for muggings in that uniform,” she said. “It’s very nice, but would make you stand out in most areas.”

“Well it is a uniform to be proud of,” he said, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm. “I attend Whitegate Academy, an exclusive high school that takes only the best students from all over Japan. In Tokyo, most people see this and know that I’m a top student. Maybe lucky too, since I had taken a general test and application process.”

He was fudging the truth again, and not even by omission. It was probably an attempt at being humble when he was very proud of his accomplishment. Wondering how he’d react, Chou said, “I’ve met someone else from Whitegate, a member of the Young Occultists.”

He wasn’t impressed with that. “Oh yes, they do have a presence in my school. They’re ridiculous, aren’t they? They’re supposed to be learning about reason and logic; it’s a part of the required curriculum. But they insist on pursuing superstitions and legends in their free time. Mysteries don’t require the occult to be solved.”

“Didn’t you say in another interview that all angles should be considered?” she asked.

“Considered, but some don’t take long to consider,” Akechi said before going into another story. It had nothing to do with the occult, but it did demonstrate his point.

Once Chou finished off her meal and paid for it, she excused herself to catch the train home. She had the thought that this didn’t count towards her promise to date someone. Of course not. If he was anyone else, she would discount him as full of himself and boring. But he was called the Detective Prince… clearly not because he was charming, but because he was clever and handsome. He’d declared that he’d capture the Phantom Thieves, he was a Persona user that she couldn’t read well with Third Eye, and there was something he was covering up. That made him an enemy.

But it could be useful to make him think that she thought otherwise.

* * *

On making sure that he was by himself (a difficult thing to do; he usually used restrooms or maintenance areas), Goro took out his phone and opened the Metaverse Navigator. Her name was… Chou Amamiya. All he had to do was bring her Shadow to his room in Mementos and she would change her mind. It took time and had once been difficult, so he couldn’t use this for widespread changes. If it was possible to influence people on a wide scale, he would have won a long time ago.

“Subject not found,” the Navigator said.

“Not found?” Had she lied about her name? It could be a precaution of sorts, but it was incredibly rude of her to give him a false name. “Search again, and include a potential Palace.”

“Searching…”

Goro leaned against the wall, giving a quick check around him. Nobody around. What was with that girl? She hadn’t seemed like anything special; possibly intelligent, but not as intelligent as himself. She didn’t have an obvious sign of distortion or being a Persona user. While his sense for such things wasn’t sharp, the feelings were hard to miss. Their dinner had taken long enough that he would have noticed.

Then the Navigator reported, “Subject Chou Amamiya has no Palace, nor a Shadow that can be summoned.”

“She doesn’t have a Shadow?” he mumbled to himself. That was usually because the person had a Persona. Everyone had darker urges; everyone was a sinner.

“Correct.”

“Does she have a Persona?” This kind of thing shouldn’t be assumed.

“That cannot be assessed at this time.”

Sighing, he shook his head. “Guess I should have scanned her while we were at the same table. But what’s with her? She didn’t seem special.”

She had been among the Shujin students interviewed about Kamoshida… all of them but one had a Persona, and that one had been a girl who seemed unremarkable… was this the same girl? Being unremarkable had made it easy to dismiss her. Perhaps too easy, ripe for mistakes. He should research her background. It might even be that her Persona made her appear unremarkable to slip out of notice. In that case, she was a stronger suspect as one of the Phantom Thieves that she’d initially appeared.

But how was he going to investigate her in person? Amamiya had listened to him and was interested in his stories. Had she been trying to win his trust so he let something slip? Right now, there was a lot unknown about this girl.

Just like there was a lot unknown about the Phantom Thieves…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is why I decided to tag this story with 'Complicated Relationships' instead of one shipping tag and sticking with it. Also because Chou is kinda trolling me with who she'd be attracted to because I've got five viable ship options at the moment, which might get bumped up to six depending on how I write a character I haven't brought in yet. I usually don't know who I ship until I start writing them.
> 
> Also, I had some ideas early of having Chou interact with the person who told Sojiro about her situation. The game only once mentions that person as far as I noticed, at the start where he says a customer told him about the MC. I thought I should at least mention what happened to the customer since they never pop in to check up on the MC despite being a friend of his parents.


	47. The Yongen-Jaya Gate

6/10

At the Yongen-Jaya station, people didn’t notice her. Anyone who did dismissed her as just a cat. Morgana did not want to be a cat! But, there was nothing to do about it right now and it let her sneak around. She just had to swallow her pride and get into the Metaverse to check things out. She was curious about what would happen.

The station on the Metaverse side was musty with lights that flickered or didn’t work at all. Unlike with Shibuya, the floors and walls were covered in dingy old white tiles, like this place hadn’t been seriously cleaned in decades. Papers on the wall advertised local businesses: Leblanc, the cigarette stall, Takemi’s clinic, a movie theater, and the grocery store were all there. Ace headed down the stairs to get into Mementos proper.

Another difference was clear immediately: a metal turnstile and caged booth blocked off access to the tunnels. The person… no, creature… no, maybe thing… the humanish thing in the booth seemed to be made of runny clay, dripping and sliding just sitting in place. They seemed very bored there, jolting upright on seeing her. “Someone… came…?” they asked in a sluggish muddy voice.

“Just looking around,” Ace said, stretching her arms and acting casual. “Who are ya, bud?”

“Bud?” Their head tilted and seemed like it’d plop right off. Then they tilted the other way and kept together. “Um. Hello. I’m a simala… smiacra… macrilo… um. I’m Mac. I guess. That works. Don’t attack. The booth is protected. So is the gate. Um. There’s something to ask…”

“Something you ask visitors?” she asked. In the long time that they’d talked, she’d noted a Shadow walking around further in the rail tunnel, a train pulling in, the booth was indeed protected from magic and physical attacks, possibly because Mac would fall apart to anything that hit them (if something hit them, since weapons wouldn’t do much to that muddy body), the gate was protected only against being broken, because there was nothing stopping someone from just jumping over the turnstile or walking under it, or a hinge could be undone.

“You came,” Mac repeated. “No one’s supposed to come through here. Um. Um, yes. Do you have a pass?”

“How do you get a pass?” she asked back.

“Umm…” While Mac thought, Ace used her claws to loosen the hinge. “I don’t know. I know the pass. Not how to get it.”

“That’s too bad,” Ace said, then touched the turnstile and made it turn. “Do you have to have the pass to pass through?”

“Yes. I’ve been told.”

She then walked through the turnstile. With the hinge loose, the enchantment didn’t stop her. “So if I can pass through, then I’m allowed through, right?”

Mac tried to turn, causing their black stone eyes to roll around their head before settling on her. “Um. I guess? I wasn’t told what happens now.”

Holding up her paws, she said, “I’m not about to hurt you, Mac. I just want a quick look around and then I’ll be out.”

“Oh,” they said, their muddy voice making it sound like they were disappointed.

What were they, really? Did they have feelings? It was hard to tell right now. “I might come back with a friend if there’s something interesting to us,” Ace said.

“You passed through. Guess that’s okay. Be careful.”

“Thanks, Mac!” She headed towards the tunnels, shifting into stealth mode along the way.

The Shadow pacing around the entrance of the tunnels smelled like it was a strong one, much stronger than Joker’s Matador Persona. This area might be a good goalpost for their next training session, to get strong enough to explore and train here. Once the station was out of sight, the white tiles got even grungier, often cracked from dark roots growing through. A low rumble built up occasionally, perhaps trains in other tunnels. The damp air felt heavy and moved slowly, not pleasant in the least. But where would these tunnels lead? Over to the Shibuya tunnels? Or somewhere else?

Ace didn’t intend to travel far on her own. The strong Shadows around her was more evidence that exploring far now was a bad idea. But while she was here, she would explore as far as she could, hopefully until she found stairs to the next level. There was an empty room and a few dead ends with some good materials (enough for a good supply of Stealthanols and alarms). On finding a three-way crossing, she spotted the end of the level right there. There were some strange Shadows in the area. While others looked vaguely human (much like Mac), these ones looked like red leeches. She observed them for a bit, seeing one crawl up the wall and enter a crack with a dark root.

“Gross,” she mumbled, preparing to check down the other way.

Then one of the powerful Shadows she’d snuck by bellowed. Ace crouched down on the ground, reaching into her pouch to get a Goho-m ready. Whatever the Shadow had noticed, it wasn’t sure what it should do. It scurried towards her, stopped to snuffle around, then scurried off down another passage. So they were extra alert here. Or, them being stronger might mean they had better senses too. Another reason to wait on this entrance.

There was still this tunnel to explore. Ace headed down, finding that it ended in a room with pillars. And three treasure chests; score! Only one Shadow, so she could keep an eye on it while picking open the chests with her claws. The first chest had some healing Beads and a collar tag that was a heart with wings. Kinda cutesy for her tastes, but a sniff proved that it was miles better than her current tag. After putting it on, she felt like it could help her be even more nimble than she already was. The middle chest had more Beads and a vest like what Joker wore. It seemed to have a similar defense to her new tag, but its enchantment was a better version of the HP Adhesive item that Dr. Takemi had made.

The last chest was being guarded (in the loosest meaning of the word) by the lone Shadow in the room. Staying as quiet as she could, Ace got out her slingshot and fired a pebble into the entrance of the room. The Shadow immediately bellowed and hurried off to see what the noise was. Ace darted over and got the third chest open while it was preoccupied. No healing items this time. Instead, there was a blue velvety box. Inside the box were a matching pen and a few cards that had a magic star on one side and nothing on the other. They all seemed like magical items, but what did they do?

Ace closed the box back up in case she needed to flee, looking over it for clues. It was a very nice blue… velvet blue? A magic circle with a star was similar to that on the cards inside. The color and magic circle were familiar, like the Tarot cards. But the items didn’t mean much to her. Maybe she just liked the color? Or maybe there was something associated with the star that she should remember…

There was a huff from nearby. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the Shadow returning to its previous pacing zone. Ace put the box away and snapped the Goho-m to get out. It put her back outside Mac’s gate. “Well that’s enough for today,” she said, glancing up at them. “See you later then!”

“Um… yes. See you later.” Mac didn’t wave, so Ace did and headed out.

On getting back inside, Morgana headed down to spend the day with Sojiro again. He was preoccupied and worried about something, but did pet her a little when there were no customers in. Morgana had to keep out of sight of customers, but that was a cinch compared to doing the same to Shadows. She even left through the front door when it came time for Chou’s appointment. Expecting to meet up with her, she went to Takemi’s clinic to wait. An old woman came out of the door, making the clinic as busy as Morgana had ever seen it. But where was Chou?

Tae came out a minute later as the old woman was searching through her purse. A handkerchief that smelled faintly of flowers was in her hand. “Excuse me, but you left this behind.”

“So I did lose it,” she said, accept it back. “Thank you, dearie. I have others, but it’s good to know that you’re a nice person behind that shy professional facade.”

“Uh, it’s just common courtesy,” Tae said, embarrassed at the compliment.

“Common courtesy and common sense are less common than one would think,” the old woman said, then chuckled. “I’m so grateful to have a doctor like you just down the road now. It’s tough on the old bones to take a trip out to the hospital I usually go to. But here, it’s a healthy walk that I don’t mind.”

“Right, well keep taking good care of yourself,” Tae said.

“You too, dearie.” She closed up her purse and went back home.

After a quiet sigh, Tae turned around and noticed her there. “Oh, you must be spending the day apart.”

“It’s not often, but today was a good day,” Morgana said.

“Well I talked to her over texts earlier about canceling today’s trial,” she said. “I’m suddenly getting a lot of office visits, so I need more time to review data and refine the next set of trials.” Then she sighed again and shook her head. “Sheesh… your partner can be a real pain, you know it?”

“How so?” she asked, flicking her ears.

Either her question got through the meows or Tae just wanted to talk. “During our texts, Chou said that being a neighborhood doctor suited me. But is that really so? This is taking up a lot of my time.”

“Well that woman sure appreciated you,” Morgana said, looking back the way she had gone.

Tae rubbed her neck. “But that patient just now…” Then she shrugged. “Well, I should keep up my license. I’ll see what happens. So, I don’t know when Chou will be back around. She is an active teenager; hope she’s not overextending herself. I’ll see you two next week.” She then went back inside.

“Man, maybe I should’ve gone with her to see what happens,” Morgana said. “Though I’m sure my scouting was useful. I can wait.” She headed back to Leblanc and back through the second story window.

Fortunately, Chou came back in before dark. Morgana bopped her on the head while she was climbing the stairs. “Hey, you’re late!”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t exactly text you,” she said. Then she put her hand fully over Morgana’s head to give her a hard rubbing. “I would have, because Tae canceled our appointment and an interesting opportunity came up instead.”

“Grr, don’t treat me like a cat!” she protested, pressing against her hand.

“I’m treating you like a friend.” Chou rubbed her a bit longer, then let go with a smirk. “And you’re purring.”

“Ack, curse my unconscious reactions,” Morgana said, shaking her head out.

“I see you picked up some goodies,” Chou said, picking up the vest on the table to look over.

“Yeah, you should use that,” she said. “Even if you’re teasing me. I got into Mementos from the station here and found these things, including a new tag for me.”

After giving the tag a look, Chou chuckled. “That seems criminally cute.”

“It’s really good armor!” Morgana said. “So I can deal with it. That’s pink too.”

“It’s a checkered pattern, so it’s not overly feminine,” she said, putting it on her clothing shelves. “The vests don’t show up under my coat anyhow. What’s with the box?” With the vest aside, she checked on the cards and pen.

“I don’t know, but they were in a locked chest too,” she said, going to her side. “There’s some power to them. I don’t know how to use them, though.”

Shrugging, she said, “Maybe Yusuke can do something with them? Because they’re blank on one side, like drawing on them could do something. How’d the scouting go?”

“It’d be dangerous for us to actually fight there now, but the nice chests were worth grabbing.”

Chou snickered at that.

“Hey, this gear will help!” Morgana protested.

Tapping Morgana’s nose, Chou said, “Yes, but your wording could be taken inappropriately. Go on.”

“If you say so.” She reported on how her trip had gone, including how the gatekeeper was easily fooled. “I feel sorry for Mac, though. He was put there with the expectation that no one would be passing through; he had no idea what to do about me.”

“Yeah, it seems odd,” Chou said, now in casual clothes and sitting on her couch. “What were they?”

“I dunno,” Morgana said, sitting next to her. “Mac tried to explain themself as a simacri-something, and eventually settled on just Mac.”

“A simacrilon?” she asked. “Like an artificial person.”

“Like a homunculus?” she asked. “That would make sense of them. I said we’d be back, though it’s too tough for us now.”

“It’d be a good goal.”

Morgana nodded. “Right, just what I was thinking! So what was your opportunity?”

Looking pleased with herself, Chou asked, “You remember what we were talking about the other day? With being femme fatales who should have some handsome detective as a foil? Well I found one.”

“You did? I was joking!”

“Me too,” she said, then shrugged. “I did think of one, and he showed up on the TV show today: Goro Akechi. He’s that high school senior freelance detective who’s gotten notoriety for solving tough cases and being a pretty boy. You’d think a detective would keep to himself, but no, he was on this talk show that encouraged questions from the audience.”

“Oo, did you get to ask him questions?” Morgana asked. Even if it had been a joke, it was interesting.

Chou nodded. “I’ll have to show you a recording of the show later. Everyone was acting all nice and awed of him, so I challenged him with a spicy debate about the people we saved and the unfortunate practice of blaming victims for their situation.”

“Heh, how’d he do?” Though she wanted to see this for herself sometime.

“He stumbled about as gracefully as he could given that he wasn’t expecting it and had no time to really think through it.” She shrugged. “It’ll cause some talk, but I expect him to make some statement with a safer position to make himself look good. And I got him good enough that he asked me out to dinner after Tae canceled the appointment.”

“Wow, either he’s weird or you’re good,” Morgana said.

“I would accept both,” Chou said. “Although he talked a lot about himself the whole time, like he was trying to convince me to be a fan of his instead of the Phantom Thieves.”

“He’s got an uphill battle there.”

“Of course. I didn’t get him to say anything much about us; he’s made it his goal to capture us and turn us over to the police, while making us look dangerous to the public. We are dangerous, just not in the way he describes.”

“Dangerous but we’re bringing justice to criminals,” Morgana agreed. “But if he likes to talk about himself, maybe you can get info out of him over time.”

She nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping. Well, I’m going downstairs to help Sojiro out, then I’m calling Ms Kawakami over again.” She rubbed her forehead. “You know, my life is so weird right now. Sharing dinner with someone I know is my enemy and calling over a maid: I never would’ve guessed I’d be doing these things, much less on the same day.”

“As long as he’s not the one making dinner, it should be fine,” she said, then followed her downstairs.

Sojiro was still clearly worried, but he had Chou clean up and let her brew coffee again. “There’s some improvement, but it’s still not on level for this shop.”

“Alright!” Chou said cheerily. “Any tips on how I can improve?”

“Mmm…” he smelled the coffee again, then passed it across the counter to her. “More practice, that’s all I can think of at the moment. I was watching this time and your technique certainly looks fine.”

“Is that supposed to be helpful advice?” Morgana said.

Fortunately, Chou didn’t say anything like that. “Gotcha, then I’ll keep working on it.”

“Sure,” Sojiro said, looking off in thought. “I’m sorry, am I being a bad teacher?”

Chou rubbed her neck, then said, “Well, you’re a tough critic. But that’s okay because you won’t accept half-assed coffee in your place.”

“You got that right,” he said, briefly cheered up. “Well keep at it. There’s something I need to do, so I’m closing up a bit early.”

“Sure, I’ll help.”

Once Sojiro was gone, Morgana hopped up on one of the stools. “He didn’t say anything to me, but he’s been worried all day. I bet it’s something with Futaba.”

“That’s likely,” Chou said. “But I have Berith active and he recommended that I not ask about that. I suppose there’s still some formality in our relationship; I don’t want to be too familiar with him yet.”

“If the Persona says that, I suppose so,” she said. “I would’ve asked about her if I could, though… but I’m being helpful, right?”

Chou nodded as she was cleaning the counter. “Yes, I wouldn’t want to be doing this without you.”

But was she really most useful as a cat? Or could they do more if she was human? Morgana thought over it while Kawakami and Chou were working on the metal shelf and discussing if it was better kept or replaced. Earlier, Chou had suggested that it’d be harder to hide her and move around together if Morgana was a human. There were many points where being a cat let her hear things from people that they might not say to others, like with Tae today, or Sojiro before.

But if she was human too, she could enjoy a lot more things… maybe… what was she besides a cat in body?

Morgana hoped that she was a hero.

* * *

6/11

On the way to school, Chou overheard a couple of girls ahead of her gossiping about Akechi. “So you guys on the TV station trip got to see him? I’m so jealous!”

“Well he is quite a pretty boy, and clever too. But I dunno about him. He said that he wants to capture the Phantom Thieves before he graduates high school.”

“That would make him even more popular!”

“But I don’t think he empathizes enough with the people that the Phantom Thieves save.”

“Well we don’t know who these thieves are, or if they’re hot like he is.”

“Uh, sure. You should watch the episode yourself. While most of the interviews were standard fare, the transfer student got into a debate with Akechi over victim shaming.”

“Whoa, that violent girl?”

“She didn’t seem that violent in person, and she kept up with Akechi pretty well in their debate. She was the top scorer in mid-terms, I remember. Oh, and you wouldn’t believe what happened between them later!”

“The transfer student and Akechi?”

“Yeah! So a friend of mine at another school skipped classes to see the show too because of Akechi, and she wanted to hang around afterward to try getting his number. He did come talk with the audience after the shoot, but he declined her request. On the other hand, he went right to the transfer student and asked her out to dinner!”

“What?!”

“And she went with him. Crazy, huh?”

“What?”

Unable to resist letting this slide, Chou replied, “He was a lousy date, for the record.”

The two girls squealed, startled to find out that she’d been just behind them. Chou shrugged like it was no big deal and their next exchange was whispered. From her bag, she heard a chuckle. Given how gossip traveled through the school, she figured it was a good chance that this exchange would be widely known by the end of the day.

At lunch, she and her friends talked about the social studies trip. “Man, the TV station was more stressful than I thought,” Ann said. “The first day’s guide treated us like grade-schoolers and everyone on staff was on edge.”

“Wasn’t that because of the Hashimotos being targeted by the Phantom Thieves?” Yuuki asked. “They were in charge of the studio and I can imagine that the whole staff was nervous with what Kyoko revealed.”

“Yeah, it was bad timing,” Chou said.

Shiho nodded. “Right, but it did warn us to keep careful around there. We got hit on a few times despite the trouble, but it could have been worse.”

“Some of them were obviously slimy,” Ann said in disgust. “If I’d heard that the television business was like that, I wouldn’t have chosen the trip there.”

“That’s awful,” Ryuji said, opening up his bag. “But we did pick up some things for you guys! Here.” He pulled out some colorful cookie boxes and passed them out.

“Oo, flower cookies,” Ann said, smiling at the gift. “They’re not going to be available for much longer.”

“Yeah, they said it was their last batch of the year,” he said.

“Sheesh,” Shiho said, opening her box for one. “If I’d known they were going to show off the bakery, I would’ve gone there in a heartbeat.”

“Well we didn’t get to see the electronics department like we’d hoped,” Yuuki said, disappointed in that. “The first day was just in their office building for some lectures on workplace culture and manners. Then yesterday was the bakery; they did have some neat equipment there, like the molds and ovens.”

Ryuji nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty crazy when they were talking about how quickly they can turn an idea into a snack. They can take advantage of any fad! At least as long as it’s not licensed or something. And even then, other businesses contract them out for limited goodies due to their quick turn around.”

“And even then,” Shiho said, “aren’t they the company that comes out with stuff clearly like something popular but not enough to get sued over? I remember these stickers and cookies of playful animals that were close to a popular show about them.”

Ann nodded. “Oh yeah, I remember those! Like there was a soccer rabbit on the show, but the stickers had the rabbit with a volleyball. They were really cute stickers, just not the proper ones.”

“That might’ve been them, Joja Novelties,” Yuuki said.

As lunch was winding down, Ryuji said, “Oh yeah, Yuuki, did you tell them about today?”

“What about today?” Ann asked. “I have a show this evening.”

“Well it’s going to be after school,” Yuuki said. “I got permission to start up the occult club provided I can get members, so we’re holding an interest meeting today. I’ve had the invitation posted up around school and put up a reminder on the school message board.”

“I might stop by and see how it is,” Ann said. “It depends if I get a message by the end of classes.”

“I’ll be there,” Chou said. “Though I had to quit the gardening committee and might not be able to stick around; we’ll see how the other students act.”

“We’ll stick up for you, don’t worry,” Yuuki said.

At the end of classes, she, Ann, Yuuki, and a couple others headed over to another classroom for the interest meeting. Two surprises waited them there: Mr. Hiruta as it was his classroom, and the Whitegate representative of the Young Occultists. Once every seat was full and a few people accepted standing in back, Mr. Hiruta said, “I must say, I’m not surprised to see so many of you show up, but we’re glad everyone came. We’re here to start up a branch of the Young Occultists Club here in Shujin. In current plans, I will be the club adviser. Yuuki Mishima here is the one who proposed the idea and Shizima Inaba over here is one of the Tokyo leaders of the club.”

Shizima, or rather Suzy as she preferred, waved at the room, “Yes, hello there! We’re around to investigate the hidden sides of the world and make them more publicly known. It’s a broad study, so we accept any approach to the unknown.”

Yuuki nodded. “Yes, but for here in Shujin, we registered the club as science-oriented. That’s why we have Mr. Hiruta as our adviser and experiments will be a regular part of club activities.”

“It’s not as crazy as you might think,” Hiruta said, bringing out a shoe box from under his desk. “I have one prepared for today, actually. Given what’s been happening lately, I’m sure many of you came because of an interest in how the Phantom Thieves potentially connect to the occult. And one part of their activities has been the awakening of Personas, spirits that are explained best by the occult. It is said that there is a way to tell if someone has an awakened Persona, but the method is controversial because other things can describe what occurs. The first experiment I’m offering you is testing out this method as we know some of you do have Personas and some do not.”

It turned out to be the pendulum method that Tae had used on her in their first meeting. Hiruta showed them how a person’s heartbeat could influence a small weighted chain to swing back and forth when held between a finger and thumb, using himself as a demonstration. Then he showed how a known Persona user, namely Yuuki, caused the pendulum to swing in a circle rather than a straight line. He emphasized that they had to hold the pendulum with a steady hand, then had them try out different people, with different chains or pendulum weights.

Of course, the experiment revealed that she now had an awakened Persona. Ann happened to be in the group with her. “No way, I thought you didn’t get one with the rest of us.”

“I didn’t,” Chou said. “I don’t want to talk about the specifics, but somebody here in Shujin reported me to the Phantom Thieves as being a killer. So they targeted me.”

“Really?” another girl in the group asked.

“Yes, I can show you the texts,” she said, taking out her phone. “But actually, they ended up apologizing to me for taking a false report; awakening my Persona was a part of that apology.”

The other students wanted to see the texts; Yuuki even came over and checked on them. “Wow, this is odd,” he said, doing something with her phone. “There’s no number on their texts, where even a hidden origin would show up as ‘unknown’. This is just blank.”

“It was all very odd until I met my Persona in my dreams,” Chou said.

“Is that why you were worried over something earlier this week?” Ann asked, then brightened. “Oh, but you know, it’s really good to know that the Phantom Thieves will admit to mistakes and apologize. That proves that Akechi wrong when he was fear-mongering on the show about them being potential tyrants. They’re truly after the bad guys.” Then she shrugged. “It’s just too bad that the courts wouldn’t take a proof of innocence like that.”

The courts wouldn’t, but now the other students might hear of this ‘proof’ and ease up.

Once everyone thinking about joining the club took part in the experiment, Hiruta had them gather to discuss and compare the results. “Science clubs are required to produce this kind of experiment twice a semester,” he explained. “And a part of that requirement is a club member writing up an article related to the experiment, whether a scientific report or general article on the subject. Do we have any volunteers on this?”

No one immediately raised their hand, so Chou did. “I can handle that.”

“Good, thank you Amamiya,” Hiruta said. “Their deadline for club articles is on Thursday before school, so turn in your article by then to one of their club members; they should be in their club room before and after school most days.”

“Got it.”

During the discussion, someone asked how the Personas were awakened. “That’s something we’d love to know,” Suzy said. “Cause Personas can protect and help us if we knew how to purposely summon them.”

“Well it happened in our dreams, so we’re not sure of it,” Yuuki said. “We could compare notes and find some common thread.”

“That would help the club a lot!” Suzy said with a big smile.

They ended the club meeting with passing out the sign-up sheet; several students left because they had expected this to be a social club, not science. But enough signed up that Hiruta was able to confirm that the club would be official. They decided to set club meetings for Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Thankfully, general school policy was that perfect attendance wasn’t required for clubs. Although if Chou wanted to contribute with articles, she’d have to be around for experiment discussions.

Most of the students left on signing up, but Chou stuck around with her friends as Yuuki finished up the official business of starting the club. “We might’ve been able to start with more members if we’d gone social,” he said as he reviewed the sign-up sheet. “But if we’re going to investigate the Phantom Thieves too, we can get more done as a science club.”

“I expect you to follow good scientific methods in doing so,” Mr. Hiruta said. “But I’m glad you took this approach; it’ll be a good addition to college applications for you all.”

“Do you believe in the occult, Mr. Hiruta?” Ann asked.

Giving a smirk, he said, “Well let’s just say that there’s a lot of gray areas at the edges of scientific knowledge and it’s easier to deny superstitions than to figure out what they may hint at. One should always be careful investigating what lies beyond human understanding. And yet, we will never grow if we don’t try.”

“What lies beyond human understanding?” Yuuki asked, his eyes wide.

“I don’t expect you’ll stumble across anything like that,” Mr. Hiruta said. “These Phantom Thieves are changing people for the better, so they must have some understanding of what they do. But if there is trouble, I may know some people to help.”

“Well I hope we do discover something,” Yuuki said. “Just not something dangerous, eh-heh.”

“If we follow good scientific methods, we should be fine,” Chou said.

Yuuki nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I think. Hey, and thanks for taking responsibility for the article. I probably should’ve done it, but I’d have a hard time making it interesting.”

“I’ll show that this works as a science club,” Chou said. It would be tough, but she was going to try.

The guys weren’t as interested in the fashion show, so Chou, Ann, and Shiho went to get an early dinner together, then headed over to the exhibit hall. “Oh yeah, things could be kind of crazy, so here’s your passes,” Ann said, taking out a pair of nametags. “They’ll let you backstage after the show, so drop on by! But first, there’s going to be a magazine crew interviewing for their series on a model’s daily life, to decide who they want to include.”

“I hope they pick you,” Shiho said. “It’d be a big boost now that you’re being serious.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Chou said. “We’ll be rooting for you.”

“Actually, it’d help if you two were with me for the interview,” Ann said. “I have to deal with stereotyping because of my foreign appearance. If they see me as a normal girl who just happens to be a model, that would help them see me how I want to be seen.”

“It’d be seeing you for who you are,” Chou said.

“Exactly!” both Ann and Shiho said at once. They looked at each other and laughed.

Outside the exhibit hall, there was a crowd of cameramen, reporters, staff, and models, along with a few gawkers interested in seeing what was going on. They spotted Mika before long, looking upset while she was talking with some people. “I’m sorry, I won’t be doing that again,” Mika said in a pitiful tone. Although Third Eye showed that she was feeling triumphant.

“You’re going to have to clean up your act greatly from now on,” one man said, exasperated.

“Kou-san, what’s going on?” Ann asked, coming over.

“Oh, Ann-chan, you won’t believe this,” he said, shaking his head. “It turns out that Mika here stole a password into the scheduling program to give herself a disproportionate amount of jobs. She was the one who contacted models with bad information so she could step in as a sub.”

“Huh, really?” Ann asked, shocked at that. “Why would you do something dishonest like that?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, hunched in just like Ann spoke of. “The competition and pressure got to me and I thought I needed to take any advantage I could find.”

“You’re going to be watched closely now, so learn responsibility,” Kou said. “Ann-chan, could you stick around here? I’ll let the reporter know you’re here.”

“Sure thing, I’ll be with my friends here,” Ann said.

Mika still had a hand to her face, looking dejected. But once Kou and the rest of the staff scattered, Mika smirked. “Heh, got ‘em.”

“You know, that attitude is going to bite you hard sometime,” Ann said. “Nobody likes a drama queen.”

“Who cares?” Mika replied. “I’m much too popular now for them to fire me and they think I’m too much of a delicate flower to be tough on. I had to be cutthroat to get myself out there.”

“So this is the bitch who talks like Kamoshida?” Shiho asked.

“I didn’t say that, but yes,” Ann said.

“Who are you talking about?” Mika asked.

“Um…” Ann was keeping cool this time, but was at a loss for words.

Chou felt it was fine to say, “A serial rapist with no respect for women.”

“What?” Mika asked, offended by that. “How do I talk like some jerk like that?”

Ann nodded. “Yeah, and I’m sorry to say, but it’s because you obsess over physical appearance with no respect for others. That’s going to make people hate you even if they act polite. Are you even happy like this? You seem stressed.”

“Of course I’m happy,” Mika said angrily. “I’ve made my face known to many. Now I need to grow my popularity even more and become a star.”

Noticing something, Shiho said, “That’s a pity. You don’t seem happy, rather you seem angry and jealous. That scowl’s not pretty at all.”

That annoyed Mika more. “Are you girls all naive air-heads like her? I said at the start that I wasn’t looking to make friends. A model has to fight with everything she’s got to attain success; Ann-chan, you’ve gotten absurdly lucky your entire life and could take things causally. You don’t deserve what little fame you have.”

“Mika!” Kou called, coming up from behind her. “Don’t antagonize your co-workers just because you got caught.”

“Th-they provoked me!” Mika said, tense and trying to cover up her anger now.

“This is sad,” Shiho said, shaking her head.

“That’s what I was trying to warn you about, Mika-chan” Ann said, pitying her. “Being competitive is fine, but too much and you’ll end up hurting yourself.”

“D-don’t pity me,” Mika said, her anger and fake tears mixing up badly as she hurried off as quickly as she could.

The reporter looked after her. “Man, I was told to look for Mika as a promising wholesome star, but she’s been ugly today.”

“I’d like to help her, but she’s not open to any help,” Ann said.

Kou shrugged. “We’ll be reviewing her behavior and seeing if we can help, but she’s on thin ice. But that’s for later. Sir, this is Ann Takamaki, a model that’s worked with us for a few years part-time.”

“Yeah, but I’m moving to full-time once I graduate high school,” Ann said. “I love modeling, but I want to keep my options open too.”

“That’s a good move,” the reporter said. “What’s your goal as a model?”

It didn’t take Ann long to reply, “Whatever I do, I want to help others. I’m already involved in charity work.”

“Really? What kind of charity work?”

“I’m working as a volunteer and mentor in training for the Heart of a Survivor charity, a group that supports victims of sexual abuse and harassment.” She gestured over to Shiho. “They’ve been helping both of us with such positive support that I knew I wanted to be a part of them. Nobody asks to be harassed or blackmailed into sexual acts like we were, but many people act like we were to blame, either for getting harassed in the first place or speaking up for ourselves. That’s not how things should be.”

Shiho nodded. “Right. People keep saying that we need to care for each other, but then don’t do so themselves. We just wanted to get back to our normal lives. Now that we’ve had some time to get away from the abuse, we want to be a positive influence in the world.”

“That’s wonderful,” the reporter said, then asked a few more questions before moving on to interview other models.

The fashion show itself was another event Chou didn’t feel too interested in. It had a different excitement to it, though: the flashes of cameras constantly going off, the glamour of the models with pristine designer clothing, make-up, and hairstyles, the awed reactions of the audience. Mika strutted down the catwalk the first time with a flirty smile; she must have been told to knock it off because she was sullen for the rest of the show. On the other hand, Ann was confidant but professional during the show. Whatever outfit she had been given, she made the looks suit her.

After the show was over, one of the convention hall staff let them into the backstage area to meet with Ann and her parents. Her mother seemed even more bubbly, coming over to shake Chou’s hand. “Oo, your new friend is cute too! You’d be stunning with a good pair of pants.”

“Thanks,” Chou said.

“Come over here, I think I have an idea,” she said, dragging her over to one of the make-up stations.

That was not what she was expecting, but Chou (and Shiho a moment later) got pulled into an impromptu makeover. Mrs. Takamaki listened when Chou said she wasn’t used to makeup or hair products; she then taught her how to use a mineral powder as a foundation and how to properly clean makeup off. She and Shiho were even gifted an outfit that the two designers thought were good for them. How rich were they? These were designer clothes that others might spend an absurd amount of money to get.

“I hope this isn’t too much,” Ann said while her parents were discussing Shiho’s outfit. Then she smiled brightly. “I told them about how much you two have helped me out lately and how I wanted to treat you both well at least once. I meant to do something myself, but they took the idea and ran with it.” She chuckled with some embarrassment. “But that’s my parents for you.”

“It’s great, actually,” Chou said, still admiring the checkered red blouse she’d been given. “Thanks, although I’m not sure I did that much for you.”

Ann shook her head. “No, you took me seriously from the start when Shiho was scared and everyone else at school had the wrong ideas about me. And your advice ended up saving Shiho, maybe.” Then a worried look crossed her face. “Although Yuuki suffered in her place. We have to keep helping him, even if he insists that he’s fine. I feel like he’s not and a lot of people would dismiss him like they’d dismissed me and Shiho.”

“Definitely, we should stick with him,” Chou said, then rubbed her neck. “I just hope he doesn’t ask me out.”

“Huh, really?” Ann asked, her eyes wide.

“Well I like him as a friend,” she said. “But I’ve been pretty busy. I don’t know if I can be the kind of supportive girlfriend he deserves, at least not now.”

“Ah, I see,” she said. “That’s unfortunate, but yeah, it makes sense. Oh, and there’s something else I have for you.”

“Really?” Chou asked, joking around by acting really surprised.

Ann giggled at that and passed over some business cards. “It’s because you’re strong willed and won’t ignore others in trouble, even if it could get you into more trouble. So here, these are for a shelter for women and children who’ve suffered domestic abuse. I’ve been doing my volunteering there and it’s a nice peaceful place. If you find someone else in trouble, you can refer them there. Even if they’re victims of other kinds of abuse, because we can refer them to where they can get assistance.”

“Thanks, this might help out someday,” Chou said.

“I hope so,” she said. “And if there’s anything I can help you out with, just let me know. You and Shiho are my best friends.”

“Same here.”

From Ann’s bright and free smile then, Chou felt like something should have happened. Perhaps something with the Confidant thing. But since Ann’s Confidant had been cut off by Igor, nothing happened. Still, Ann was now her best friend and that was a wonderful thing by itself.


	48. Reverse Page of Pentacles

6/12

M.S.: You need to discredit Kyoko Hashimoto’s testimony. Drive her mad, compel her to retract it, whatever needs to be done, kill her as a last resort.

UBlack: That could be difficult. I wasn’t able to summon her Shadow before.

M.S.: You need to do this.

M.S.: I’d rather kill her, but the advisers rightly pointed out that she said she expected to get killed. Getting her to retract the confession is our best option.

UBlack: If I can’t summon her Shadow, there’s nothing I can do. Her Palace is gone.

M.S.: This is ridiculous.

UBlack: I have test exams today too. I can’t try anything until later.

M.S.: Do something about this as soon as possible. You’ll be well compensated when you do.

UBlack: I’ll try.

Goro shut off his phone and put it away, grumbling to himself. “You should know just as well as me that if I can’t find the Shadow, I can’t do anything. This is going to be a pain.”

In the halls, he spotted someone vaguely familiar: a girl in a Shujin uniform with short straight hair. It was mostly her face that was familiar. Wasn’t there a picture of her somewhere? “Excuse me, but would you be Makoto Niijima?” Goro asked her, checking on the sign of directions too.

“Oh yes,” she said, looking at him. “Aren’t you Goro Akechi? My sister talks about you sometimes.”

“As she does you,” he said with the friendly smile. “Well this is an interesting coincidence; it’s good to meet you in person.”

“You too,” she said, returning the smile. “Good luck with this exam.”

Goro shrugged. “It’s just practice; I considered skipping, but it’s for the best to take it and see where we are.”

“True.” She seemed worried but focused.

Maybe he could mess with her. If he distracted her enough to do poorly on these practice exams, it’d trouble Sae. “Are you looking to join law too and help out your sister?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” Makoto said.

“I’m sure she’d like the help from another trust-worthy source,” Goro said. “Perhaps even now with the Phantom Thieves. They’ve been frustrating to investigate.”

“She told me to keep out of that, which I’m fine with,” she said. “There wasn’t any good information I could find around our school anyhow.”

Finding information had been frustrating; he had some theories and hunches right now. “Or maybe you’re not that reliable,” he said. “You know, you really shouldn’t cause trouble to your sister; she worries about you a lot.”

Somehow, that made her calmer. “You’re awful quick to make judgments. I would think that’d be a fault in a detective. As I said, good luck.” She then headed off to the exam rooms.

It was a disappointing reaction, but at least he’d made her angry. Goro checked the posting, found that he’d be in a different exam room from Niijima, and headed there. While this was just a practice exam, he still wanted to score at the top and leave others without a doubt as to who was best.

* * *

While doing her normal Sunday chores, Chou worked on the report for the social studies trip and other homework. She had a vague idea of what to do today, but no certain plans until she got a text from Makoto. ‘I have to turn my phone off shortly for a practice exam, but would you meet up with me for lunch? And some Gun About in the afternoon, there’s a reason. You can choose where we eat; I can get back to Shibuya around noon.’

She consulted with her current High Priestess Persona; somewhere Makoto might not normally go might be best. ‘Sure, let’s meet up outside the beef bowl shop in Shibuya.’ Then she looked up some Mementos requests to take this morning. One of the first she saw had the requester mention that their boss made them want to die. It was hard to tell even by Third Eye if that was serious or an exaggeration. But she took it in case it was serious.

Morgana felt like the Yongen-Jaya entrance was too dangerous at this point. They headed out to Shibuya, picked up an aojiru for Chou and a milk for Morgana, then headed in. Along with the normal requests, there was also picking up an angel feather for Iwai. There hadn’t been a good time to negotiate with the angels in Kenzo’s Palace, especially when the red-winged angel put the rest on alert. What had happened to that angel? He hadn’t fused with Kenzo like the demons did.

However, angels proved to be a pain to negotiate with in Mementos too. Ann’s strategy for fake crying worked against many Shadows, but not against angels; Joker didn’t even try a more flirtatious approach. They didn’t respond to threats or logic either. Eventually, they had the luck to get an archangel begging to be spared. It still resisted giving her the angel feather, trying to get away with giving her ten thousand yen instead. Joker refused and stepped closer with the gun, getting it to give up the yen and the feather. Once it was let go, the archangel slunk away sullenly.

The boss from the first request turned out to actually be driving the particular worker to suicide. He couldn’t fire the requester himself because a superior liked them, so the boss was doing his best to pressure the worker into getting out of the job in any way possible. It was all out of jealousy, and a fear that the worker would be promoted into replacing him. While his Treasure was disappointing (a coffee mug that didn’t even have special qualities), it felt good to stop him before he got rewarded for knowingly driving someone to suicide.

As time got frozen for their missions, they had time after finishing the requests and training to head over to Untouchable to sell things off. They were still looking through Kenzo’s book, but Chou showed Iwai Kyoko’s locket. “What do you think of this?”

“Hmm, not a part of my inventory,” he said quickly, taking it to check over. On opening it and finding a signed photo, his eyes widened briefly. Then he got concerned. “But I know this is going to raise eyebrows, even more than the fake medal. I’ll look into it, but I’ve got a hunch you should hang onto it for a little while before doing anything with it. It’ll be suspicious whenever it pops up, but less so the further away from this business with the Hashimotos.” He then passed it back over.

With advice from a new Hanged Man Persona from today’s trip, Chou replied, “So it’s not part of your usual inventory, but you know a thing or two about shady deals.”

Snorting and amused, Iwai replied, “More like a few hundred things. But what makes you think so?”

He was testing her again. “It was clear from when I was building models with you,” she replied. “That police detective who came in seemed experienced and he was coming to you for word on underworld deals. You have some tie to a yakuza clan?”

“You’re sharp, kid,” he said. Under the stoic expression, it seemed he was relieved. “And right. I was a demon hunter as a teenager, but I was also a smuggler, a fence, and a member of the Hashiba Clan. That detective is a local guy I know and trust, which is a real rarity for an officer. One of the things he asked about is something I’ve been curious about myself, but I can’t do things directly without suspicion.” He rubbed his chin. “I wasn’t sure about asking a girl, but you’re no ordinary girl despite looking that way. You mind helping on on something dangerous?”

“I’ve done dangerous things just this morning,” Chou said. “And I’m considering asking a dangerous favor out of you, since you have experience as a demon hunter. But only if you want to.”

Iwai smirked at that. “Is that so? In that case, we’ll work together. I’m looking into a deal that might have gone down back in January involving my old clan mates. It could be something that’ll change the city for the worse. Once I set up a meeting, we’ll be trying to get people to talk, peacefully I hope. What about your favor?”

Chou nodded. “You know about my thief business, so I’ll say that I’m looking into the leader of the Shibuya mafia.”

“Hang on, them?” Iwai asked, giving a frown. “Those guys are aggressive and unprincipled. They trap their victims and punish them fast and relentless. While it’s pretentious, I’m glad they’re calling themselves a mafia because they’re all thugs. They’ll find a way to punish you if they know you’re after them.”

“I’m not going to let them know,” Chou said. “And I feel you won’t tell on me. We’ve gotten into the dreams of their leader already. However, we got blocked out immediately. I was hoping that as a business owner in Shibuya, you might be able to help us get our foot in the door. There’s another option we figured out, but it would require getting separated from my partner.”

After a moment, Iwai nodded. “All right, I’m curious about all this myself. It’ll take me a couple days to get some models and gear I like in good shape, but I’ll come with you some evening.”

“Good, then we have a deal,” she said.

She still had time, so went to a nearby bank to open an account and store the money she had. Iwai had recommended it and they got her set up with a student account; it gave her a bonus if she also set aside some savings for college, which seemed like a good deal. While they let her deposit that morning, they wanted a guardian’s approval for her to make full use of the accounts. Sojiro should approve, so she took the forms for him to sign and headed out to the beef bowl shop.

Makoto came over not long after, wearing her school uniform despite it being Sunday. “Thanks for meeting up today,” she said, being polite despite an internal frustration. Then she looked at the restaurant. “I’ve not been in here. Are they good?”

Nodding, Chou said, “Sure, it’s a good value and good taste. Just don’t work here; it’s a crazy job.”

“Oh, you’ve worked here? Well, I’m looking forward to this.”

Lunchtime turned out to be not as crowded as dinnertime, so they got their food quickly. Chou gave her some time to flavor her barbecue bowl to her liking, then asked, “How’d the practice exams go?”

“We won’t get the scores for a few days, but I think it went well,” Makoto said. “Some questions weren’t what I was expecting, but I did the best I could. However, I ran into someone before the tests. Do you know Goro Akechi?”

“Sure, he asked me out to dinner a couple days ago,” Chou said.

“What?” Makoto said, dropping a piece of meat back in her bowl in surprise.

“I wasn’t expecting it either,” she said. “But he was vain and wouldn’t stop talking about himself. I think that he realized I’m a fan of the Phantom Thieves and was trying to convert me into a fan of his instead.”

Makoto laughed at that. “If you’d told me that yesterday, I wouldn’t have been sure if you were serious. But I believe you now.” Then she shook her head and sighed. “It was the first time I’d met him, but he works with my sister and she sees him as a good investigation partner. However, he was very rude to me in saying that I was unreliable and I shouldn’t worry my sister. What right does he have to say that the first time I’m meeting him?”

“Did you smack him for it?” Chou asked.

“I thought about it!” She clenched her free hand. “I’ve been trained in akido; it’s a defensive style, but you’d be surprised at what can be done with it. But one of the principles that my teacher drilled into us is that we shouldn’t pick fights. Even though he was trying to provoke me for some reason, I would hold my temper.”

“Good,” Chou said to reassure her. “He puts on such a pleasant facade, but his pride could be enough that he’d lash out with sharp barbs at bystanders if someone else cuts him down.”

Makoto nodded. “Right, you were interested in psychology. That sounds like a solid theory.”

“But you want to shoot some zombies because you can’t smack sense into him on the first meeting,” she added.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “But you know, while we were waiting on the exam to begin, I thought it over. When he criticized me, I had the thought, ‘I got the principal fired. I don’t need to be afraid of another jerk.’ While it’s not normally how I think, it felt good and I could take on my exams like any other.”

“Well you don’t have to accept the word of a jerk who criticizes you on the first meeting,” Chou said.

“True, but I’ll have to be polite if my sister brings him around,” Makoto said. “Actually, since I bought up my akido class, that could help me out. Our teacher taught us about patience and self-control as much as she taught us martial arts techniques.”

“Like meditations and such?”

She nodded and looked thoughtful. “Yes. It couldn’t hurt to review those lessons; I’m sure I still have the notebook full of handouts. But I remember some things.” They ended up talking about ways to keep calm and in control while under pressure; Chou had figured out her own methods, mostly to deal with her mother. But it was good to hear of different ways to the same end.

As they were finishing up their meal and discussion, Chou remarked on that, “Like if someone attacked you, the tactic is to recognize the danger, then pretend that you noticed sooner to throw them off-balance.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Makoto said. “Yeah, I really should be reviewing those lessons. If I’d kept them in mind when the principal was first pressuring me, I might have kept calmer and dealt with his outbursts better. I’d just gotten so used to doing as I was told. But really, a position of authority comes with responsibility. If a person in charge of others cannot act responsibly, then they’ve not earned the respect that would be due to a good leader.”

“A lot of leaders ought to be held accountable, not allowed to get comfortable,” Chou said.

“True. That goes for me as the student council president as well. I should focus on my responsibilities and decline what doesn’t fall under them.” Then she paused. “Although, it’s fine to take a break like today every so often.”

“Maybe not quite like today because you did have exams too, on a day off,” she pointed out. “But I’d agree with that.”

“I still think my sister would be against the games,” she said. “Then again, I have acted on my responsibilities as a student today. I can have a break.” She chuckled at herself. “Sorry for changing the subject, but I didn’t get to bring it up earlier: how did you get on a date with Akechi? From what I’ve heard, he sounds more serious and uptight than me. He’s already working full time as a student and detective, and excelling at both even if his attitude could use some polishing.”

“Apparently it’s because I made a show interesting by arguing with him,” Chou said, then explained how the social studies trip led to her challenging Akechi when no one else would.

“I wonder what his real intentions were,” Makoto said after hearing the story. “I mean, I could believe that he was trying to convince you to favor him over the Phantom Thieves. Even so, it seems strange to me. I wouldn’t want to hang around talking with someone who put me in a bad spot, especially on TV.”

“I was surprised at it too, so I wanted to figure it out,” she said. “Lots of girls think he’s handsome and charming, but he’s not my type.”

“That charm must only be skin deep,” Makoto said, pausing to think it over. “But I wonder… maybe he was trying to connect to you as a potential link to the Phantom Thieves?”

“What makes you say that?”

She put her hand to her chin; maybe she wasn’t a detective, but having a prosecutor for a sister might have given her some insights into how prosecutors and maybe detectives thought. “Well you do attend Shujin, where the Phantom Thieves of Dreams made their first noticeable move. You admit to being a fangirl and you have a strong moral sense. You would stand up for victims and aren’t afraid to speak up against something you don’t agree with. I mean, there’s other factors that make me still believe that you can’t be one of the Phantom Thieves. But if I were in Akechi’s shoes, you’d be a stepping stone into investigating people in Shujin closer.”

There was a temptation to ask what other factors convinced Makoto that she was innocent. But Chou didn’t need her Persona’s advice to know that was a bad question. Trying to get into this line of thought, she instead said, “Ah, so if he was seen around school talking to me, he could observe other students and get them to talk to him.”

Satisfied, Makoto nodded. “That and if he could get you talking about other Phantom Thieves fans, he could find other suspects and sources of information. If he’s not your type, you might be okay. I’d just be aware that he probably intends on using you to further his investigations, not trying to get close to you romantically or something.”

“It’s a scummy thing, but practical,” Chou said. “Thanks.”

At the arcade, they went right for the Dusty Catacombs, the second map of the series. Their characters were barely in level range for the map. By taking things slow, they got the tougher enemies defeated and found more valuable treasures. They even located what should be the sealed room, but Makoto didn’t approach the hidden door. “Hey, I had a thought: the battalion will be stronger this time, right? Like the enemies are.”

“They should be,” Chou said.

“In that case, let’s skip triggering them,” Makoto said. “That should give us credit for finishing the level and we can put the rewards towards getting strong enough for them. With the gold we’ve gotten, we should be able to gear up in another run.”

“Yeah, we should be able to do that.”

With the gold, she could finally buy the stealth armor set. Another run gave her a silencer weapon attachment; it wasn’t the best her gun could get, but that shouldn’t matter for the maps she could access. On the third run through Dusty Catacombs, they raided the secret treasure room and headed for the boss arena. Three skeleton gunners greeted them and before they could get up to a good position, they were both annihilated.

“Th-that didn’t last long,” Makoto said in surprise.

“Yeah, that was rough,” Chou agreed. “We’re still in the low range for levels and I thought our gear was good.”

“We might need to come up with a different strategy,” she said, setting the controller back in place. “We were counting on you sneaking us into position, but my character can’t cover for three of them right on entering.”

Chou put the controller away too so she could sign out. “That’d be best. We can look up the map online and consider things to try next time.”

“Sure.” After looking at her phone, Makoto put it away. “Sorry, but I should get back home and take care of some chores. Sis is probably wondering where I am too.”

“Sure, see you later.” Chou let Morgana back in the bag from her perch on the arcade machine, then went to work at the flower shop until she could meet up with Yoshida.

There was already another worker there, but Hanasaki seemed tired and let her take a few hours. She had Chou make up some bouquets for orders tomorrow. “Oh yes, and I don’t think you’ve heard, but I’m going to have a baby.”

“That’s wonderful,” Chou said. “Are you going to keep working?”

“As much as I can,” Hanasaki said. “I’m not due until late December; might even have a New Year’s baby.” She smiled joyfully. “This isn’t too tough, and my husband is very supportive. And don’t worry, I’ll keep you on as an irregular part-timer if you want.”

When she could… juggling her schedule could be a headache if she thought about it. But it had gone fine so far. She’d have to hope that it went well in the future too. To Hanasaki, though, she said, “Well, I might quit. I do like this job; it’s been really good, but I’ve gotten into some big plans that are taking up a lot of time.”

“That’s fine,” she said with a warm smile. “I hope you do well.”

“But if I need some flowers for anything, I’ll definitely drop by here,” Chou said, smiling back.

* * *

There were more people in this hospital who knew about the Metaverse, so Goro didn’t need to be as careful with using the Navigator. He still kept out of the way so somebody didn’t bump into him coming out. Hoping proximity worked, he had the navigator search for Kyoko and Kenzo’s Shadow again. He only needed hers, but this could be good information to relate to Shido. If he didn’t like something, it would take overwhelming evidence to get him to consider accepting that it was the truth.

“Requested Shadows cannot be summoned,” the Navigator said.

“Of course not,” he mumbled, taking a screenshot of the error messages. Then he forwarded them to Shido with the note, ‘I can’t meet Kyoko’s Shadow now. If you really want to be rid of her, I can compel someone into it and make it seem personal.’

The standard jilted or psycho lover plot… standard and ultimately boring, but people believed it and loved it. He sent a request to examine evidence to the police headquarters, then left the hospital to get to the labs. As expected, he got to the headquarters before he got a reply on either. The police lab gave him permission to come in. And once he got inside the evidence room, Shido sent the go ahead to eliminate both Hasimotos. ‘Kenzo has now released a confession and some trolls keep reposting the videos. I don’t care what the advisers say; I want them silenced. Just be sure it’s not connected to us.’

‘I’m on it,’ Goro replied, then got the assistant to get him the gathered evidence from the Hashimotos. There was something he recalled hearing about that should help.

Among the belongings that Kyoko had turned over, there was a locked black diary with a rose key tied to it. Goro unlocked the diary and skimmed over the records of sexual conquests and activities. It was disgusting how into this she had been; women who weren’t in control of their passions caused far too many problems. However, the records and a review of the studio staff allowed him to pick out a candidate for a murder-suicide plot. He would just need to get the killer a weapon (Shido’s word would let him slip a gun out of here) and a way into the hospital (there were plenty of staff that could be pressured into it). There was a male director whose name kept popping up…

Or, there was a female costume and set designer who was recorded as both a partner and a source of recreational drugs. One entry noted that ‘Aimi wanted a threesome with Kenzo, but had a good laugh over his weirdness.’ A psycho lesbian who was so afraid of what the Phantom Thieves had done to her lover that she killed herself, Kyoko, and Kenzo in a fit of paranoia. Perhaps even whichever of the hospital staff he convinced to let Aimi in. It would clean things up in a sensational way.

Goro put Aimi’s full name into the Navigator and got an immediate hit. “Requested Shadow has been summoned in Mementos.”

“Of course,” he said, a smirk escaping him. “It’s too bad I wasn’t the one to put the cracks in your facade, old man. But I don’t mind helping you dig this hole for yourself. I just have to pretend ignorance.”

That was another reason to take the Phantom Thieves down: they’d messed up his plans to ruin Shido. But they could wait… no, perhaps they could help knock Shido over. Just as long as they didn’t steal his kill, they could be quite useful to that end. Goro knew that he should begin planning around that. Once he figured out who the Phantom Thieves were, he could find a way to pressuring them to follow his lead. They were newbies, more than likely.

And hopefully that Amamiya girl could give him a lead.

* * *

‘To Chou:

I know you have some hard feelings towards Councilman Masayoshi Shido, but if you can put them aside, I’d like you to see this old speech of his along with some additional information. It relates to something I’d like to talk with you about. Please review his speaking techniques.

From T. Yoshida’

After she left the flower shop, Chou gave this request some serious thought. Sure, she didn’t like Shido at all. But this was a request from Yoshida, who was genuinely a great man. It might also become necessary to encounter Shido in person at some time. Perhaps not noticeably so, but then she’d have to keep calm and collected to not be noticed. With that in mind, Chou played the video. Don’t think of him as Shido, just some other standard politician…

He was a good speaker, might be more powerful in person. There was a point where he shifted gears and adapted his speech to how the audience reacted. When compared to the records of what he’d done in the Diet, though, there was a clear discrepancy between what he’d said and what he’d done. So he was two-faced even with his work. But Yoshida wouldn’t have sent this to her for that reason. It was for some speech lesson… perhaps something related to politics too. She’d have to keep her feelings to herself.

As usual, Yoshida gave his speech first. The topic today was about the responsibilities of the government and how politicians needed to be held accountable (and how they would fail if examined). Chou overheard a couple discussing how Yoshida’s speech sounded like something Shido had said recently. Despite how it was an important topic, they thought that Yoshida was merely copying Shido. It was annoying.

On wrapping up, Yoshida asked her if she’d watched the video. Chou nodded. “He adapted well to the audience and put a lot of energy into his words.”

“Yes, he’s very good at that,” Yoshida said, crossing his arms over his chest in thought.

Then someone else came up to them. “Excuse me for interrupting, but Mr. Yoshida? That was an excellent speech and I’m glad I came around.”

“Thank you,” he said with a nod, then took a second glance. “Huh, you’re… you’re Benzo Kuromoto aren’t you? It’s been a long time since I’d seen you.”

“It really has been,” Benzo said with a polite nod. He seemed like he was in his late twenties, like an earnest young professional. “My grandfather and I have been talking about you lately and I decided to look into talk that you were still giving speeches here. I’ll have to tell him how you’re doing; you’ve even got a student now, huh?”

“Oh yes, Amamiya here has been a good listener,” Yoshida said. “How is your grandfather doing? I heard he was taken to the hospital recently.”

“He’s in recovery, but still doing some work. He spoke highly of your speaking ability and I see he wasn’t wrong. Actually, would you be willing to take me as a second student? I’m interested in learning from you.”

Yoshida’s eyes widened. “Really? I’m flattered, but are you sure of that? You’ve done well for yourself in politics; I hear you’ve been trusted with an important position by your party. Not only that, but it would be a conflict of interests as I’m no longer associated with a political party. That could cause trouble for both of us. Amamiya is still a student considering politics, so there’s no conflict.”

“I think that shouldn’t be a problem,” Benzo said. “Give it some thought at least. My grandfather would like to speak with you too, so visit him if you find the time.” He then said goodbye and left.

After a moment (maybe making sure Benzo had left), Yoshida took a deep breath in thought. “Hmm. It is nice to see him again. But maybe I’ve been in politics too long, as I’m not sure if this encounter was just a friendly one.”

“He seemed earnest,” Chou said. “But somebody could be using that earnestness to make use of him.”

Yoshida nodded. “That’s another option, perhaps more likely than what I was thinking. But it’s not always malicious; this may be Benzo working to overcome a weakness. See, one aspect of politics is knowing people. Communicating with others, making connections, deciding on a course out of a myriad of opinions, even using others to get things done: all of this counts on how well you know people.”

“It makes sense with being a representative of others,” Chou said.

“Knowing others can turn rotten if the knowledge is applied with malice,” he said. “It has a little to do with what I meant to talk with you about today. You noticed that Shido adapted well to the audience; there’s an idea about ‘reading the room’ that gets brought up frequently. Open criticism is looked down upon in our society, so people hope that others can read the room and the unspoken signals that speak of agreement or disagreement.

“Reading the room is good for giving speeches too. If you can adapt your message smoothly in response to how the audience responds, they’ll listen better. But this can also be a bad thing.” He brought out his phone to bring up some of the files he’d sent. “This was a speech given early on his campaign trail, one that had me take notice of him. He has the will and determination to make change, and he reads others well. However, he has proven himself insincere and unreliable.”

“Right,” Chou said. “The thing that he changed his speech to say was one thing he failed to follow up with, the business tax I believe.”

“That’s one thing,” Yoshida said. “Now sometimes what people want is not what’s best for the nation. Taxes are often a necessity to pay for many government expenses, everything from educational grants and road maintenance. That is one thing more politicians can be held accountable for, the wise and unselfish use of tax money. But even in optimal conditions, taxes would still be necessary.

“Despite that, saying that you’re doing what’s best for the people is a terrible lie when your actions are ultimately self-centered. He’s still speaking what people want to hear while doing what he pleases. It can be hard to change people’s minds, but when they do change their minds, it changes fast. And someone who speaks powerfully in person can change opinions with their words, as long as the audience is willing to listen.”

Chou nodded. “It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, so people don’t like to change.”

“Yes, that’s a good thing to keep in mind.” Then he smiled. “And I’m glad you kept calm to discuss a speech from him. That kind of tolerance is important when you need to debate or otherwise keep calm.”

“It took me a couple moments, but I got it,” she said.


	49. Newspaper Advice

6/13

The train news spoke of the start of the rainy season, although they didn’t need to tell anyone that it was raining. It was a steady rain in a warm breeze. With an umbrella and a lightweight hoodie, it wasn’t bad at all. Even Morgana felt that way, although she quickly followed up by saying that she didn’t want to be in the rain. In Kawakami’s class, Chou tried writing up the article. There was a guideline online for the school newspaper. But maybe Ohya could give her some advice?

Chou took a moment after classes were over to text Ohya to ask if she could meet up tonight. As she was waiting on a response, a text came from Yusuke. He had today free and had something he wanted to talk about again. She agreed to that and got notice from Ohya that they could meet up at the usual place later on. If they didn’t do much as the Phantom Thieves this week, it might not be so bad. Or they could do training runs through Mementos and be sure of being fine when they could start exploring Kaneshiro’s Palace. It had been delayed, but they should be able to go through now.

There was no deadline unlike the article, so there was no pressure to move ahead.

At Josei, Yusuke had to shut the door due to a boisterous club down the hall. “I’m getting used to tuning out the noise of others,” he said. “But it’s harder when starting something.”

“Right, because you’re not focused yet,” Chou said.

He nodded and started painting on the canvas once she had gotten into her pose with the Tarot book. Partway through the session, a teacher walked in, saw them there, then quietly went through to grab something before heading out. Yusuke didn’t even look at the teacher. On the other hand, he did notice when she asked for water breaks.

When he was done for the day, he let her see his progress. Some areas were detailed, like her hair, her shoes, and her fingers holding onto the book. Other areas had base color and shape, mostly those that didn’t need her there modeling. “Would another modeling session get this done?” Chou asked. “It looks promising.”

“One more session should,” he said, looking over it himself. “I should have it… although I still find myself wondering if Madarame would approve.” He sighed and hung his head.

“That kind of feeling hung over you for a long time, so it’d be hard to shake,” Chou said. “What matters is that you’re happy with your art.”

“I do still enjoy it,” he said. “While I want his approval, I know that Madarame was distorted and cruel. The feelings of others are strange, but mine might be stranger still.” He paused, then shook his head. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about today, though. See, there’s something that occurred to me over this weekend. Are you Joker, the leader of the Phantom Thieves?”

“Uh-oh,” Morgana said, currently hiding under the couch being used for the portrait.

“What makes you say that?” Chou said, acting curious. Though if she were to guess on it, it’d be an artist’s trained visual sense along with working on this painting and a picture of Joker.

Yusuke calmly looked at her and replied, “I’ve been working on that portrait of Joker too, although it’s become less of a portrait and more of a surrealist representation of things I experienced. In doing so, I noticed that you both shared commonalities in your body shape, hair, and words. I’m making this painting as a study of androgyny, and Joker has an androgynous appearance despite the masculine outfit and Persona. You both have been very encouraging towards me, even accommodating when others have written me off as strange.

“Then once I realized that you were likely to be one and the same, I also remembered how you were the first few times we met. You showed some weakness and insecurity then, which did make me feel like we were more alike than not. But now I’ve realized, you must have had an eye on Madarame then and were baiting him in those early meetings, for some purpose. You’ve shown a lot more confidence outside of those early encounters, so that would fall in line more with how you are than how you acted. Am I right in this?”

It felt like it’d be more work to lie to him now. “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “I am Joker and I was trying to get close to Madarame early on. Getting access to the atelier was an important step. I am sorry about misleading you then. But ultimately, it was to help you out at Nakanohara’s request. He was the one who first pointed me in Madarame’s direction.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” Yusuke said, smiling in satisfaction at being right. “I would never have escaped from being under Madarame’s control on my own. Once I made the connections, I did review the piece and decide to change it.” He gestured to the incomplete painting by them. “It would be too obvious that I was using the same model for that work and this one. Would you like me to go ahead with the Joker work? My redesign would take away some signs that would expose you, like smoothing the hair and drawing out signs of masculinity since everyone believes that Joker is male.”

“That would help me out a lot, so go ahead with it,” Chou said. Getting a hint that he would like to be relied upon, she added, “I’m sure that in your hands, it’ll turn out great.”

“I will do my best, as always,” he said, even bowing. “It is a work of gratitude, after all. But since you’re here, I simply must know: how did you get the authentic originals back into the world? Madarame’s peacock painting was burned years ago, for one.”

Chou tapped her head. “They were all in his head. In truth, they might not be originals, and they might not be perfectly back because memories of something can change. But the methods that let me steal hearts let me steal the art out of his memories and return them to reality.”

“That still makes it sound like a miracle,” he said in awe. “But we’re all very grateful for what you’ve done for us, me and the other students of his. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your secret, not even them. And if me and my Persona might still be useful to you, go ahead and call on me again. I don’t think I have it in me to make such dream escapades a regular activity, but I’ll be there for you if you need me.”

She nodded. “Sure, I won’t forget. And if you need me as a friend, just send me a message. I’ll be happy to keep helping out, even if it’s just talking or hanging out.”

“Well, I’m sure you know more interesting people than me, but I’m glad for that,” he said.

Since she wanted to get to Shinjuku in good time, she got a quick convenience store meal in Shibuya, then headed back to Leblanc to change out of uniform. Morgana didn’t want to deal with the bar as usual, so she stayed home while Chou headed out. The rain had let up a little. Still, she didn’t see Chihaya out in her usual spot. They might not be able to meet up for a while due to the rain, which was unfortunate. If she hadn’t pressed herself so much last week, she might have stopped by to talk to her at least once before the rains.

It was just Lala and Ohya in at this time, as usual. “Calling me up this time?” Ohya asked, already drunk. “That’s a bold move towards an older woman, you know.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I was hoping to get some writing advice from you,” Chou said, going to sit by her.

“Mm, couldn’t hurt,” she said. “By the way, I looked more into you out of curiosity; you’ve been uncanny with your tips. And it turns out you were right, your case has a bunch of red flags that somebody fixed it. However you look at it, there’s no way in heck that a case of assault involving a minor would have been wrapped up that fast. You’d have to have a detailed confession, which wasn’t there for you, and it’d have to be a court without much on their schedule, which isn’t the case for your old town. There wasn’t even any evidence, just the word of your accuser and a single short testimony. That really sucks.”

“It does, but that’s why I want to bring down jerks behind their backs,” Chou said.

“It’s a good reason,” she said, leaning on the counter to think.

Lala came by and offered her the usual cup of tea. “She paid for this one too,” she said. “But seriously, Ichiko-chan, are you going to just leave it at that? Reveal that you looked more into her past without offering anything of yourself?”

Ohya gave her an annoyed look. “What, really? It was all publicly available knowledge. Kind of a pain to find, yeah, but still there.”

“You could at least tell her about Kayo, since we’ve already talked about her without letting Chou-chan know what’s going on,” Lala said.

“Do I have to?” Ohya muttered, then sighed. “I suppose it’s an equal exchange. But listen, Kayo’s done nothing wrong, got it? That’s the most important thing.”

“Sure, got it,” Chou said.

Ohya nodded and took a drink to gather her thoughts. “Kayo and I worked together, covering politics and investigative reports. She wasn’t originally into politics; she did photography for children’s books and magazines. But I talked her into working with me and investigating corruption. We were zeroing in on a pretty big conspiracy in the Diet, got walled in many directions due to the list of people we can’t report negatively about. We still managed to find outliers who were involved but not protected. In our investigation, Kayo got a meeting with one of the outliers who seemed willing to talk. I knew she could handle it and get the info, but she vanished that night.”

“Died or simply vanished?” Chou asked.

“Vanished without even a poof,” Ohya said, snapping her fingers. “The police found the guy she was going to interview in a love hotel, dead. They accused Kayo of it all, but there’s no way it’s true! She would not have slept with that man, nor killed him. He was willing to talk and there was no reason Kayo had to kill him. She would’ve decked him if he got funny with her, mark my words, but not killed him.” Then she sighed. “Besides, she would’ve contacted me in some manner if something went wrong. Something rotten went down that night, but no one will investigate it. I’ve been blocked from doing so, and the chief even took me out of politics and put me over to youth and entertainment.”

“That sucks,” Chou said. “But there should be some way to find her.”

Ohya nodded. “I’ve been following a lead through a colleague. It’s not much, but I learned a bit more… the politician who died was found with a strange black substance on his face. They don’t let this knowledge out much, but that is evidence of cognitive psience mental shutdown.”

She knew that term? “What’s that mean?” Chou asked, pretending ignorance.

Tapping her head, Ohya said, “Cognitive psience is some tangential school of psychology that says that we can look into people’s minds and affect them from within. Those Phantom Thieves you love are probably doing some cognitive psience nonsense, but it’s so little known that I can’t make an article about it. Kayo came across it more or less on accident and I don’t really get it. The important part of it is that the mental shutdowns and psychotic breaks that have been occurring all over is become some criminal is out fucking with people’s heads in their heads.” She frowned a moment. “Actually, I don’t think the Phantom Thieves are responsible for the shutdowns. They’re much too flamboyant and public with their actions, while the criminal works in the shadows.”

“They’re interested in getting justice, I’m sure,” Chou said.

“Or maybe they’re really bored and playing at being heroes,” Ohya said. “Whatever… damn you, Lala, I didn’t really want to think about everything sucking tonight.”

“It’s only fair because you investigated her without permission,” Lala said.

“Well if you want a distraction, I did want to ask you for some advice, Ohya,” Chou said.

“Eh, call me Ichiko, it’s fine,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I joined an occult club in school, one registered as a science club,” she explained.

“Really?” Ichiko asked, raising an eyebrow and looking over at her. “How’d that thing slide?”

“The guy who started it was clever,” she said. “One of the things our school has science clubs do is write reports on their experiments and investigations for the school newspaper. I volunteered to write an article on an experiment that tested if a person had a Persona or not, so what can I do to make it good?”

“Know the paper guidelines first and foremost,” Ichiko said. “You’ve got a limited amount of space, so stay within the word counts to get the article accepted and not truncated. Oh, and keep things snappy; long words might seem impressive, but they’ll get cut in two most of the time and look bad.”

“All right, that should help,” Chou said.

“Are Personas still a big thing with teenagers?” Lala asked.

Chou nodded. “Yeah, but we don’t know how people get them. The people who have Personas are those who’ve been involved with the Phantom Thieves, like everyone who had dreams of defeating Kamoshida.”

She’d mentioned it to perhaps interest Ichiko into writing about Personas. But then Lala smiled and said, “Well then, it seems like maybe I could help you out. I know how to awaken a Persona.”

“Really?” Chou asked, surprised enough that she didn’t have time to cover her reaction. Lala did have a Persona, but Chou hadn’t thought to see how much she knew about them.

“You know about a thing like that?” Ichiko asked, also surprised.

Chuckling, Lala said, “When I was your age, Chou-chan, there was a big fad among students about the Persona game. If you want others to know about it, you might want to record me so you can pass it on.”

“Oh, sure, if you’re fine with it,” Chou said, taking out her phone to do so.

“It’d be a wonderful thing if the Persona game became widely known again,” Lala said.

“It sure sounds like some high school fad,” Ichiko said. Still, she started a recording too.

“Well it was a fad, but very nostalgic to me,” Lala said. “You both ready? The Persona game was said to reveal who you could be, through a benevolent spirit named Philemon.”

“They were the manifestation of the good in humanity, right?” Chou asked, partly so Ichiko knew it too.

“That’s right,” she said. “There’s a few different versions, but the one I knew and tried needs four people. It helps if one person already has an awakened Persona, but can be done with no one like that; it’s more likely to fail if there isn’t already a Persona with someone. You also need a room you can walk around, with someone in each corner. If you have them, the person with a Persona starts by walking clockwise to the next person, tapping their shoulder and saying, ‘Persona, Persona, show myself through yourself.’ Once the circle is complete, a spirit that represents who you can be will manifest in front of you. Accept them and the Persona will be awakened, to protect and guide you.”

“What happens if someone can’t accept a Persona as who they could be?” Ichiko asked.

“If you can’t, then there could be trouble. The spirit will either leave or they’ll end up causing you problems later on. Actually, I had some trouble at first. I thought at the time that I was a guy and had to stick to what people expected out of men. The spirit that appeared to me was a gorgeous lady and I was too afraid to admit that was who I could be, who I wanted to be even. But I had a wonderful friend who encouraged me to give her another shot. I went to a shrine to make amends and she came back to me. She’s been with me as my Persona ever since, though she leaves me to myself if I don’t need her.”

“What happened while you couldn’t accept her?” Chou asked, having seen what that could do.

“Well I had a lot of headaches,” Lala said. “But if you can accept yourself, there’s no danger in the Persona game.”

“Headaches aren’t much of a danger,” Ichiko said. “And it does sound like the kind of thing teenagers would be into.”

There might be other dangers, Chou thought. Was it irresponsible to not mention it now and get this information spread? Or would it make things more interesting to get more people with Personas around? And those with Personas couldn’t get Palaces and distorted Shadows…

“I’ll definitely let the club know about this,” she said.

* * *

Here are your instructions. Follow them exactly.

The instructions… nothing else mattered. Nothing else was in her mind: not who she was, not that she’d felt tired, achy, and stressed all day, not that she’d been inexplicably feeling like some monster in a human shape was trailing her, waiting to devour her… it was all gone. All gone. Her mind was empty save for the instructions.

Make sure she was dressed appropriately for visiting a friend at the hospital. Have a face mask. It didn’t matter. She just had to be dressed appropriately. She took the quickest change and a plain mask, then headed out. A child on the train looked at her and shied away immediately. It didn’t matter. Follow the instructions exactly.

In the hospital lobby, someone would be waiting for her. Someone called a name as she walked in. That name… it was her name. “I’m here,” she said quietly. “To visit Kyoko and Kenzo.”

The nurse nodded and led her into the halls. They made a stop in a break room. “This is for you,” the nurse said, taking a handgun out of a drawer.

That was important; she took the gun. The first target was him. “Take me to Kenzo.”

While the hall was guarded, the nurse told the guard that he could take a break. Kenzo was asleep in his room; a bottle of sleeping drugs was sitting open on a counter in the room. It didn’t matter. That was someone else’s instructions. She shot Kenzo in the head.

The second target was Kyoko. She was in a room further down the hall. She was asleep too and got shot in the head. The third target was the nurse. She shot her in the head. The fourth target was herself. Put the gun in your mouth and fire.

She shot

* * *

6/14

“Last night, someone got into a guarded area of a police-associated hospital and killed Kenzo and Kyoko Hashimoto, a nurse, and herself before anyone realized what was happening. The police are investigating…”

Goro chuckled on hearing the news. “They’re taking some standard photos, but not taking it any further. After all, they know who gave the orders. I wish I’d been there; it’s always nice seeing the results of my work in person.” Then he went back to making his lunch.

More of the wicked ones had died; justice has been served. And with their absence, the world was a teeny tiny bit better. Maybe it was just a teeny tiny bit, but he’d been making these bits of progress for two years now. He’d made a huge impact across the city by now. But despite how much he stirred up society and tried to make people better, they refused to change. There was still a lot more to do; it’d almost be worth it to exterminate the vast majority and start things all over again. But he didn’t have the power to do that.

Not yet, anyhow. Perhaps if he impressed God enough, it could happen. For that purpose, more sinners should die. Or go through a mental shutdown, since that was worse than death. Goro toyed with the idea of setting off on a quest to do that, choosing his own targets finally. But no. Shido should be crushed first. Then Goro could turn his eyes towards destroying other sinners and reforming the world.

The rain didn’t get him down. In fact, perhaps his actions yesterday had given him a bit of good karma. He arrived a little early in Shibuya and found one of the Shujin students waiting in line off by herself. Her thick curly hair was distinctive. “Good morning, Amamiya-san,” he said politely, getting in line behind her. “I should have realized that we were likely taking the same train to school; Whitegate is further down the line.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said, glancing back at him. “Good morning, Akechi-san.”

“I am glad to have run into you again,” Goro said. “I wanted to talk with you some more as you seem quite intelligent. Actually, I could teach you how to make deductions, and other skills that a detective needs. Maybe you could be good at it.”

“Maybe,” she said, along with an odd chime in Goro’s head. “I do like reading a good mystery and trying to puzzle it out myself. You have any books you’d recommend?”

“For mysteries? Of course.” They talked about books on the train until she left for her school.

On the last leg of his daily trip, Goro checked on the Navigator. It had been a long time since he’d heard that chime. It was useless to him, but there was something called Confidants that was supposed to increase his power. He hadn’t noticed it do anything; it must be another lie used by the Game Master to mess with him. After over a year of this doing nothing, the Confidant list finally changed. Chou Amamiya was now listed under Justice.

“Justice?” he mumbled to himself. What did that mean? Was she a force of Justice somehow? Then she might not be a part of the Phantom Thieves, unless she followed some perverse form of Justice and needed to be shown what justice truly was. At any rate, that made her more interesting.

He was still be ostracized at school, unfortunately. The other students hadn’t gotten the sense to suck up to him now that he was famous. But it was fine. Goro could just remember victories like last night and it was all good.

Things were going just fine, if it wasn’t for that thorn of the Phantom Thieves.

* * *

“Last night, someone got into a guarded area of a police-associated hospital and killed Kyoko and Kenzo Hasimoto, a nurse, and herself before anyone realized what was happening. The police are investigating…”

“Wait, did I hear that right?” Morgana asked from the bag. “The Hashimotos were killed?”

“Seems like it,” Chou said, holding her bookbag to her chest because the train to Shibuya was crowded. “That sucks.”

“We might want to keep track of what happened,” Morgana said. “And hope that it doesn’t get pinned on us.”

“They were shot, so I doubt it.” As usual, people weren’t paying attention to her speaking into her bag. She still wanted to be careful with what she said, in case someone else paid attention to what they overheard on the train.

Like a man near her said, “The Hasimotos? Weren’t they targeted by those weird Phantom Thieves nuts?”

“Yeah, and admitted to some crazy sex and drug ring going on in the entertainment industry,” another man said. “Another reason it sucks that I couldn’t get by as a singer.”

“Ugh, really?” the first man asked.

“Well if it gets me in bed with a hot actress like Kyoko, I’m game. Or even better, a younger one.”

“And that’ll get you shot just the same by another nut job. Sheesh, are there any sane people left in the world?”

“Everyone’s a bit nuts,” Chou said quietly, then chuckled.

Now, she had to decide who to call on this afternoon to help with some research. She wasn’t able to on the train to Shujin because Akechi showed up and talked with her. He turned out to be the Justice Confidant. Clearly. He was a detective and if she wasn’t careful around him, he’d end up arresting her in the name of justice. It might not be Justice itself, but that might have been enough to put him under that arcana. Since he went to another school, he couldn’t help with this (not that he could help anyhow, due to having a Persona already). Several of her friends had Personas too, but there were some who didn’t. And that’d be…

* * *

Chou: Haru, could you help me out with something after school? It shouldn’t take long.

Haru: Sure, what is it?

Chou: I’m writing an article for the occult club about Personas and want to test out a way to summon them.

Haru: What’s this about Personas? I’ve heard some talk.

Chou: They’re like guardian spirits who show you what you can be.

Chou: I have one, but it was awakened in my dreams. But now I have information on how to awaken them outside of dreams.

Chou: I just need to test it before I write an article or something.

Haru hesitated on answering. Guardian spirits who showed you what you could be? That sounded amazing, honestly. But… what if they showed her as a meek and quiet wife who did whatever her husband told her? That could be truth; it was an unpleasant truth, but truth all the same. Maybe it would be a relief to just know that.

Or maybe, just maybe, there might be a clue on how to escape that truth. Make it a lie. That would be nice.

Haru: Okay, I’ll help you out.

Chou had her come to her homeroom, along with the student council president and one of her classmates. “The club’s actually meeting in another room today,” Chou said. “But I wanted to try it out with people who wouldn’t get too excited and could judge this rationally.”

“That makes sense,” Makoto said.

“As long as it doesn’t take too long,” the boy with them said. Chou had introduced him as Seong-Min. “I have to work today.”

“It shouldn’t.” Chou then took out her phone. “I recorded the person who told me about how to awaken a Persona, so listen to her about this.”

Despite saying ‘her’, the person in the recording had a deep voice. But her story made sense of it. “She sounds like an interesting person,” Haru said. Unlike anyone Haru knew outside of stories, but Haru felt like she’d like to meet this woman.

“Lala-chan is great,” Chou said, putting her phone away. “That’s how we’re trying this; I have a Persona, so I’ll start once we’re in position.”

Maybe this was childish; Haru thought about it while she waited in her corner. It seemed a little simple for something that was meant to reveal who you could be. But if it was simple, there was no harm in it. Chou started and passed the chant off to Makoto; Makoto then passed the chant off to Haru. She then passed it to Seong-Min, then he finished the circle back to Chou. And then…

Something flashed in the room, like a lightning bolt without thunder. In the brightness, Haru briefly saw a gold butterfly flying just out of reach. A warm voice said, “Haru Okumura, I will reveal who you could be.”

Then she was in a beautiful garden, surrounded by flowers. An extraordinary dress was there, with no one inside; it was beautiful, yet there was a colorful skull motif on it. Holding her mask and fan aside, she said, “I am Milady de Winter; we should not be controlled by any man, not even a husband or father.”

“That sounds good, but they have all the power,” Haru said.

“Hmph.” She opened up a fan and revealed a hidden blade there. “It will have to be done wisely, but we shall find a way to fight back.”

That should not be done; it wasn’t proper. But, it was what she wanted. If she could find a way… “Yes, I’d like that,” she said since it was just her and this spirit. “I’m not sure how to fight…”

“Fighting can be done with words and seemingly innocent actions,” Milady said. “You have until the end of the year, correct? Take your time; make them think it was their idea. We’ll find a way.”

“Good.”

Milady put her mask to where her face would be. “Then do you accept me as a vision of yourself?”

Haru nodded. “Yes, I think I’d like to be more like you.”

“Then I will always be by your side.” Milady then vanished, leaving her back in the classroom.

* * *

The spirit who appeared before Makoto was familiar, one who’d appeared in her dreams not that long ago. Her outfit had some signs of a Catholic priest, or even the pope. But it was also the outfit of a biker, with spiked gloves and a long white and gold scarf. Not only was she dressed like a biker, but she was sitting astride a futuristic motorcycle. Someone both wise and free, strong and fast…

“I am Johanna, ready to help you make your own way,” she said. “Are you ready to rebel by finding your true self?”

The idea of rebelling seemed frightening and enticing. Everyone had always told her what to do. What would happen when she did things for herself? But could she?

Makoto wanted to. “I don’t want to go crazy in rebelling. But I do want to start.”

“Good, then I will help guide you,” she said, letting her go back to the classroom.

“That really worked,” Makoto said, heading towards the center of the room.

“It did,” Haru said. “I’m not sure who my Persona is, but I like her.”

“I wasn’t sure who mine was, but it seemed awesome,” Chou said.

“I know mine,” Makoto said. “Although, she seems like an alternative version that I dreamed up, more like who I want to be.”

“I don’t know mine,” Seong-Min said. “He’s odd, but I think he’ll help. And sorry, but I should head out.”

“Sure, don’t work too hard,” Chou said.

“I should go too, to check on the plants,” Haru said, leaving as well.

“Well looks like I’m asking you most of the questions,” Chou said with a smile. “How was it?”

“Well it seemed playful at first, just a game,” Makoto said. “I felt like this might be more interesting to younger people, but went along with it since the rest of you were doing it. And it was an experiment, so it’d be bad to flake out while it was going on. Once the circle was complete, though, I felt something like a tingle on my neck. Then there was that flash, and maybe a gold butterfly?”

“That was Philemon,” Chou said, tapping her shirt where she wore a gold butterfly pin next to her year pin. “They spoke to me too, thanking me for bringing the information about their game back.”

“Are they a god of some kind?” It felt strange to do something related to a god since her family hadn’t been particularly religious.

Chou shook her head. “Not quite. Like I said in the recording, they’re the manifestation of the good in humanity. So they are a very powerful spirit, but I don’t know if you could call them a god or not. I’m still learning occult things, part of why I joined the club.”

“I suppose that’s one reason to do so,” Makoto said. “After Philemon said they would reveal who I could be, I met up with my Persona. I thought I was on a road by the sea, a place I saw when I was a child. And you know what? My Persona manifested as Johanna.”

“The woman who was pope?”

She nodded, feeling some excitement thinking back over it. “Yes, but she’s also a biker? But I think that’s even better. Though it is weird because I’ve never really been a rebel. But she invited me to be one to find my true self and I felt like I had to say yes.”

“It seems like something you should do,” Chou said. “Like what are you studying for?”

Putting a hand on her cheek, Makoto said, “Somebody asked me that a few days ago, but I dismissed it at the time. I was aiming to study law like my sister; she’d recommended it as a good career. But it wasn’t my choice, so would it make me happy? I should figure out what career would make me happy, right?”

“Sure, that’s what I plan on doing,” Chou said. “I have no idea what I want to take as a career.”

“Really? I guess you are a second year, so it’s not that pressing yet.”

She shrugged. “Well I kind of want to do everything I’m interested in, if I can manage it. Like I could be a psychologist, a therapist, or maybe an artist or writer. Or a fortune teller, that could be interesting. So I’ll study what interests me and figure out what to do from there.”

“That’s a different way to look at things,” Makoto said. “But I like it. I’ll have to give this some thought.”

“It would help if I could get noted as an honors student,” Chou said. “But that’s up to the teachers and some of them still don’t like me.”

What made an honors student? She hadn’t considered it before, just knowing that grades and tests got you there. “It could be complicated by your probation status,” she said.

She nodded. “I was arrested before I was a student here, so that doesn’t negate me as eligible; I looked that up.”

“Well, aren’t you on the gardening committee?” she asked.

“Not anymore. Some freshmen wanted to join, but were intimidated by me. I left so that they would join.”

Frowning, she said, “That’s selfless of you, but you shouldn’t have to do that. But I was thinking, a part of being an honors student is being active around school. You’re in the occult club and writing an article for them. If you were on the gardening committee too, that would help. Doing some community service would also be a plus.”

“I was invited to help out at an animal shelter; I need to check with them to see when they open up.”

“Good, that should give you a boost with the committee that gives out honors like that. Hey, Haru should still be here. Let’s talk with her about this.”

“All right.”

They found Haru and the three other members of the gardening committee in the courtyard. “Excuse me, but we wanted to speak with you about Chou being back on the gardening committee,” Makoto said.

“Really?” one of the freshmen asked.

“Yeah, I want to do something for the school,” Chou said. “Shujin accepted me when no other school would.”

“That would be great,” Haru said with a smile. “Are you girls okay with it, though? Chou really is a nice person; I don’t think she’s trouble at all.”

Makoto nodded. “Right. As the student council president, I can say that Chou has helped me out on several occasions and is a good person.”

“Oh,” one of the girls said, looking at her friends. “Well, if Haru-sama and the president will speak up for you, I guess it’s okay.”

Another girl nodded. “Yeah, but you’d better not upset Haru-sama!”

“I wouldn’t dare do so,” Chou said.

“Uh, thanks, I think,” Haru said, blushing at the respect.

So she was in a committee and a club… but it couldn’t hurt if Makoto spoke with some of the teachers on the honors committee on Chou’s behalf. She hadn’t deserved her probation, but deserved this chance to be recognized for her work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I mentioned it before, but the Persona game here came from Persona 1 and 2. The later Persona games do have good Persona awakenings in being more personal and adapting to a dangerous situation, but there's something fun to the old method that sounds exactly like something a bunch of teenagers would do without realizing that it draws them into dangerous occult conflicts.


	50. Kamoshida's Replacement

6/14

Now with five people on the gardening committee, they had to split up which days they worked. Haru was still helping the freshmen learn their duties, and the rainy season meant that they didn’t have to water the plants. But it ended up giving Chou committee duties on Mondays and Tuesdays. Since it was Tuesday but they were taking care of things, Chou went back to Leblanc to work on the occult club article. It would look good if she could turn it in tomorrow.

To keep within the word limit (and keep it snappy), Chou found that she couldn’t add on a part about the Persona game. But she could hint that they had a method to awaken a Persona while giving a rundown of their experiment and status as a science club. That should fulfill the club’s article requirement, inform other students about the club, and interest them in coming. She didn’t even mention the Phantom Thieves, hoping that just the Personas was enough to make others curious.

She was getting it printed up when she got a text. Surprisingly, it was Chihaya. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but could you come over soon?’

Chou: Sure, but I thought you wouldn’t be telling fortunes in this weather.

Chihaya: I normally wouldn’t, but someone convinced me to try with a shelter.

Chihaya: I’m still not sure about it, but one of my visions suggested that this would be a good time to discuss Tarot lessons.

Chou: Okay, I’ll catch the next train out there.

“Something up?” Morgana asked, coming across the bed.

“Chihaya wants to talk tonight,” she said, getting up for a change of clothes. “So I’m heading out to Shinjuku again.”

“She’s out in this weather?” she asked, looking out the window. It was coming down thicker than the rest of the day, coating the window in water.

“She’s got a shelter, apparently,” Chou said. “So her table won’t be out in the rain.”

“In that case, I think I’ll come along,” Morgana said. “I like Chihaya.”

“All right, if you’d like.” Once she was dressed, they headed out to Shinjuku.

Chihaya was in her usual spot, with a green rain cover over her table. “I’m terribly sorry for calling you out all of a sudden, but I have some bad feelings,” she said, clearing her cards from the table. “Like I’m sure this isn’t a good night to be telling fortunes. However, it also seemed like a good night to meet up with you, and with a regular customer of mine who already has an appointment. So we’ll give it a try; bring out your cards if you have them.”

“Sure,” Chou said, letting Morgana out of the bag so she could get her deck.

“And it’s nice to see you too, Morgana,” Chihaya said, petting her head and smiling.

“I’m not a cat,” Morgana protested, but rubbed her head into Chihaya’s hand anyhow.

“First, I’d like to see you make a ten-card spread here,” Chihaya said. “Shuffle the cards, look for your own fortune, and lay the cards out as your book instructed you.”

“Okay,” Chou said, doing as she said. The rain was loud on the shelter, but it was a better background noise than the usual hubbub of Shinjuku. What was her fortune? What was going to happen? She focused on that as she shuffled the cards.

On seeing how Chou laid them out in front of her, Chihaya nodded. “Of course, Waite’s ten-card cross spread. Let’s see what the cards have to say about your fortune.”

Chou nodded. “Yes, I start here, in the middle of the cross.” She flipped the card over and found the Fool. Of course.

“So the beginning of something, perhaps,” Chihaya said. “Or one of many other meanings; the connections of the cards tell the story more than any one individual card.”

“There is a potential non-standard meaning to this,” Chou said. “A lot of things around my dream world missions are described by the Arcana, from the Shadows I fight to the people I know. The arcana for myself is the Fool.”

She put a hand to her chin. “Ah, so that is literally yourself. All right, go on. The second card is a problem or influence surrounding you.”

Flipping the card over, Chou found the card was upside-down. A reversal, of The Hermit. Hermit… that had been one of the negated Confidants, particularly Futaba. Perhaps the trouble with Makoto had passed. Although until the 20th had passed, she should still keep in contact with Makoto, just in case. She continued on with the reading. The card above the center with the first two represented a goal or destiny… it was Nine of Wands, which could be a break in the action, but also a signal of hidden enemies or troubles. A break was what was happening now since she took care of the Hashimotos, but perhaps this was a sign of problems coming. But the fortune was only started.

The fourth card was something in the distant past that influenced her current fortune. That was… the World, also reversed? There was a chill in her blood on turning that over. Next, the fifth card was something in the recent past that influenced her position… Six of Pentacles. Chou looked at the card for a moment to recall that some of its meanings were generosity, charity, and kindness. And the sixth card, a future influence… it was The Heirophant. Then this was something about Sojiro and Futaba, and The Heirophant shared some meanings with Six of Pentacles. That could play into how this was going to affect her soon.

The last four cards were in a column to the left of the cross. If the cross was her current situation, then these four cards should show a way through the problem revealed. The seventh card also showed herself as the questioner, in relation to the others… Nine of Swords in reverse. What did that mean? Chou couldn’t remember right away, so moved on to the eighth card. The Moon. Given where it was, it probably didn’t relate to Yuuki. Rather, it spoke of deception, uncertainty, and danger. She was deceiving Sojiro about her activities as Joker. Then the ninth card, about her inner feelings and thoughts… Ten of Cups. She remembered that card well since she’d been drawn to it on seeing it; that only increased when she learned it had meanings of home, a good family, contentment, and other things.

And the tenth card, showing how the rest combined into her fortune or destiny… Two of Cups. It potentially signaled love or even marriage, but given the rest of the cards, it probably had one of its other meanings. The start of a friendship or partnership, or finding some understanding… Sojiro had asked her to become friends with Futaba, which was difficult. He’d been unable to help her with her grief. But whatever was in Chou’s current destiny could lead to a breakthrough finally. That was promising.

“That’s an interesting set of cards,” Chihaya said, leaning on the table to look herself. “Whatever you’re facing now, there is a light of hope close by. Perhaps not for your own problems, but I get the feeling that you can become a light of hope for someone close to you.”

Chou nodded and tapped the Heirophant card, then the Six of Pentacles. “From what hints I’ve been given, these two relate to my current guardian, and this Hermit relates to someone he knows. She’s someone I’ve been trying to become friends with, but it’s hard to tell with her. It seems like something is going to happen to them soon, but I’ll be in a position to help them if I’m alert to the signs. I’m not sure about this card,” she pointed out the Nine of Swords.

“In that position…” Chihaya paused a moment, looking at the cards, then closing her eyes and seeing something only she could see. “They don’t fully trust you right now. You’re someone new to their lives, suspicious because of your probation. Perhaps they’re starting to see that you’re not a danger, but there’s still enough doubt that they’re keeping you at arm’s length. You’re actually at a wall with your guardian; if things remain the same, you won’t grow any closer to him. But if you can win the trust of the person you connect to the Hermit card, that will change things for all of you.”

“We definitely want that,” Morgana said.

Chou nodded. “That’d be great. I’ll have to try talking with her more.”

“Yes, that would help you.” Chihaya paused again, then pointed out the reversed World. “This card, though… you had to tell me about the Hermit being someone in particular, but I saw this one and knew it was referring to someone. I don’t know who, but they’re trying to control you like a piece in a game they play. They’re willing to sacrifice you as a piece if that would obtain the endgame they want. While this fortune looks positive, this person is almost certain to destroy you with time.”

“Hmm, I won’t accept being sacrificed.”

“I’m not sure how you’d get around it as it is set as your fate,” Cihaya said sadly. “But… well, for now, I want to try something. Shuffle the cards well and set out your fortune again. There’s a point to it.”

“All right.” Chou gathered the cards back into a stack.

“What’s this going to prove?” Morgana asked, putting her paws on the table.

When she had ten cards arranged in front of her, Chou turned the first card…. The Fool. She continued in the same order as before, revealing The Hermit, Nine of Wands, the reversed World… all of the same cards, in the same order. Then Chihaya asked her to do it a third time. Chou made sure to shuffle the cards well, turning sets of them around. Despite that, she got the same spread as before.

“Ah, this is great!” Chihaya said, her eyes bright. “This proves that you have power, and a strong connection to the Tarot. An ordinary person in an ordinary place would have come up with a different arrangement, since they’re just shuffling the cards randomly. While this street may not look it, it is a special location. Someone like you and me can repeat a reading here, because of our inner power and the power of this place.”

“Huh, so my reading won’t change until something about my fortune changes?” Chou asked.

She nodded. “And this is promising for our lessons. I’m not sure I could teach someone who can’t make the cards repeat through their own power. Although…” she looked troubled.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“A couple things.” She looked up at where the water streamed off the shelter. “Maybe it’s just tonight, but I still feel uneasy. I don’t think I’ll be around until the rain season is over. On top of that, there’s a… a friend, who helps me with this business. He didn’t agree with taking on a student unless I charged for lessons. Are you okay with that?”

Feeling like it shouldn’t matter, she asked, “That depends on the fee, so how much?”

“Well it’s basically a different form of fortune telling, so three thousand yen a session?”

“That’ll be fine for me,” Chou said, getting out her wallet to give her the fee.

“Oh good, thank you,” Chihaya said, relieved at it. “Then it should be fine, when the weather is good.”

“Excuse me?” A nervous-looking woman approached them. “Am I interrupting?”

“Oh, no, I’ve been expecting you, Aina,” Chihaya said. Meanwhile, Chou gathered up her cards to put away. “I hope you don’t mind, but this is Chou, my student. She’ll be observing if it’s okay with you.”

“It should be okay,” she said, taking a seat across from Chihaya. “But it is proof of how good you are, that you can get a student. I might tell Yuya; he’s convinced this is all a waste of money, but you see things so well.”

“How are things with your boyfriend?” Chihaya asked, looking concerned as she brought her cards back out. “You were having some trouble with him.”

“I’m doing my best to patch things up with him,” Aina said. With Third Eye, though, Chou could see some distortion around her. It reminded her of how Yusuke had been when he was living with Madarame. “But there was another argument yesterday; it was rough, but it is my fault. I didn’t tell him about how I purchased a Holy Stone from you. I should have, but I need it to fix things. But he also needs money for something. Is there anything else I can do to help him?”

“Are you sure that’s for the best?” Chihaya asked. “You’ve had a lot of trouble with him.”

“It’s okay because I love him,” she said, reciting it to herself too. “People are so unfair to Yuya. If he didn’t have me, he’d be all alone. I can’t do that to him, so I need to help him get to a better place. That’ll make me happy. But I really need to know a better way to help him.”

“Let’s see what the cards say,” Chihaya said.

According to Chou’s book, it was best for the questioner to shuffle the cards so that their aura could influence the reading. But Chihaya did the shuffling; there was a shift to her as she focused on Aina’s fortune. That seemed to connect the cards to the questioner; it must be a part of Chihaya’s power. As before, she did her spread in an eight card circle around two cards. Chou paid attention to the order the cards were turned, comparing it to the spread she knew. If these cards were revealed that way, it’d be an ominous reading.

It had Chihaya concerned. “It looks as though your boyfriend is not willing to change. The Holy Stone and perhaps some money will work for a little while, but your fate is clear: by the end of summer, you will be in the hospital and he will be in prison.”

“No, that can’t happen,” Aina said, afraid for herself. But the distortion shifted things and she was afraid for her boyfriend. “He’d be ruined by a mistake like that; it must be a mistake. What can I do to help? Maybe convince him to use the Holy Stone… would it help to buy one for him? It’d be tough to afford and convince him, but if it’d help, I’ll do what I have to.”

That had Chihaya stuck; she looked at the cards, trying to find some way. “Well, this fate…”

There was no reason to let this ‘fate’ happen; Chou felt a little angry that Aina’s situation was like this despite having just met her. It wasn’t her fault and that boyfriend of hers had to go down. “There could be something you could do,” Chou said, looking at Aina. “And I can help with it.”

“Really?” she asked, hopeful.

Nodding confidently, Chou got out her phone. “Have you heard about the Phantom Thieves of Dreams? I can’t reveal how, but I have a way to contact them. They hunt demons too and this reading suggests to me that your boyfriend may be influenced by a demon.”

“Th-that would make sense of things,” she said, feeling scared for herself again.

“I just need his full name and the Phantom Thieves can get this fortune changed,” Chou said.

“Well, don’t tell anyone I asked about this,” she said.

“I can’t have anyone saying that I know how to do this ether, so we’ll keep quiet together,” Chou said.

Feeling better about that, Aina said, “His name is Yuya Uchimura.”

After confirming that she had it spelled right, Chou set her phone aside to get a business card from her bag. “All right, and here’s what you need to do. Gather a few things you need and go here for a few days. It may seem like you’re in the wrong place, but let the staff there know what’s going on with you and your boyfriend. Be honest and they can help. It’s very important that you stay apart for a few days, keep that in mind. It’s in the cards.”

“Okay, so until Saturday about?” she asked, taking the card.

“That should do it.”

Aina nodded, relaxing some. “All right. And I’ll be sure to take the Holy Stone with me; it’ll help me keep calm and positive, I’m sure. Thank you.”

“Good luck,” Chihaya said, smiling although it vanished for worry as soon as she left. “Are you sure that was the right thing to do? The cards were clear to me; it is fate that she’ll end up in the hospital in the next few months.”

“The Phantom Thieves can change people who won’t change in any other way,” Chou said, shifting her phone so Chihaya could watch. “The method to contact the Phantom Thieves is actually known by many people. You send a message to yourself, with the name of a person who wronged you and how they wronged you… it was clear to me that Aina is being abused by her boyfriend, so I’ll put that here, and send it…”

“That’ll just come up with an error,” Chihaya said, then saw the screen go blank. “Oh, but that… it disappeared, but I saw for a brief moment that it went somewhere.”

“The Phantom Thieves now know his name and can steal his heart,” Chou said.

Morgana nodded. “Yeah, we’ll get right on it! This one has a deadline with how long you told her to stay away from him.”

“Will that really change her fate? That should be impossible, but I’ve heard of those Phantom Thieves. They’ve done some unbelievable things. And what was that card you gave her?”

Chou handed over a second card. “It’s to a women’s shelter for victims of domestic abuse. They have counselors on staff that should be able to help her out.”

“I’ve suggested that to her in the past, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” Chihaya said, then frowned. “That was mean, lying to her like that.”

“But that was the way that she’d accept help,” Chou said. “Why don’t you read her fortune again?”

“It’ll just come out the same,” Chihaya said, but gathered the cards to shuffle and spread back out. And different cards appeared, changing the meaning of the ones that remained. “Huh, wait… I can see it… she’ll cry when the shelter’s counselor talks with her, but that’s because she’ll finally see things unclouded by her boyfriend’s lies. She may still end up in the hospital, but might not. Her boyfriend will end up in prison, whatever happens to her. Fate is unchangeable… but her fate’s begun to change now, with a strong chance of being better for her. How did you do that?”

“I wanted things to change for her,” she said. “So I gave her what chance I could.”

Chihaya looked at the cards for a moment, nearly said something, then looked for another moment. “I… I suppose we’ll have to see what happens…” then she shivered and gathered up the cards. “But I’m more sure that I should close things up; I have a bad feeling again. Do you really have contact with the Phantom Thieves? Aina’s boyfriend hasn’t done anything to you.”

Putting her things away as Morgana hopped into the bag, Chou replied, “They’ll make an exception for me; they gave me their word. See, they targeted me on a false report…”

“Huh, so they stole your heart?” By now, Chihaya was getting her table folded up.

“They tried,” she said. “And then they realized that my heart wasn’t distorted. I don’t hold a grudge against them, since it ended up helping me out in the end. When I make a report on someone else’s behalf, though, they know I have a sense for things and will follow through.”

“Well that’s fortunate,” Chihaya said, right as the rain got louder all around them. They both got umbrellas out just before her shelter ripped done the middle and drenched the spot they’d been sitting in seconds. “Ah, I was afraid that’d happen!”

“That was close,” Chou said, having to speak louder over the rain.

“Yeah, we could’ve drowned!” Morgana said, peeking out of the bag as Chou clutched it to her chest.

“Or I would’ve had a soggy unhappy partner,” she said.

Chihaya sighed and shook her head. “I’ll have to tell him about this… I really can’t work in this weather. I suppose we won’t see each other for a while…”

“Keep safe and dry,” Chou said.

That made her smile. “Thanks. I have the card, so I’ll drop in on Aina and see how she’s doing later on. And I hope you can earn your guardian’s trust soon.”

“I’ll be working on that.” After parting ways with Chihaya, Chou asked, “You up for a Mementos hunt tonight, just this guy?”

“Sure, let’s do it!”

In Shibuya, Chou found her own request set apart from the rest. Of course the app recognized when she put in a name herself. She took the request to target Yuya Uchimura. Searching for him took them to the deepest rest area they’d reached and several levels below that. The rain could be heard no matter how deep they got; trails of water occasionally dripped down the walls and made muddy puddles. When they encountered Shadows, other Shadows frequently joined in to extend the battles.

They got all the way down to another platform level before they found Yuya’s Shadow. He was pacing in front of the stone arch marking the boundary between this second area and the next. On seeing them, the black flames around him flared up. “Hey! Are you the jerks who sent that lame threat?”

“It wasn’t lame, but we did warn you,” Joker said. “Now you will pay for your sins.”

“Fuck off,” Yuya’s Shadow said. “The world is rotten, so if I seem rotten, it’s because everything else is. I do my work and pay my taxes, so leave me alone.”

“You abuse and control your girlfriend, and we’re not gonna let you continue,” Ace said, pointing her sword at him.

“She’s mine and you have no right to judge what I do with her!” He transformed into a large oni with a club. “I hate everybody like you! Always judging me, never playing me fair. I’ll crush you!”

If it hadn’t been for the improved armor Ace had picked up, he might have indeed crushed them. The Shadow could strike the ground with his club and attack both of them at once, or he could hit them with sharp blizzards. At one point, Joker had to use one of their revival beads to let Ace back into the fight. The oni couldn’t heal himself, so they just had to endure and keep fighting.

It felt like it took forever, but they got the Shadow defeated. He returned to Yuya’s form, collapsed on his knees now. “Why the hell are you picking on me?” he said, sounding exhausted. “If I had just won that last round of pachinko, nobody would be calling me a loser.”

“It has nothing to do with that,” Joker said, getting in front of him. “Let me show you what your sins are.” She then connected her power to him.

He did not want the commitment of marriage, but he pulled Aina away from her family and friends to have the services of a wife, as he thought of it. He beat her and strictly controlled her, letting her do jobs he approved of so he could take her money. Then he gambled all the money he got, doing just enough at his job to not get fired. Yuya wanted the good things in life but did not want to lift a finger himself to get them.

“Wh-what the hell?” Yuya’s Shadow asked, gripping his hair. “Stop this! This is normal! All the guys at my job are like this.”

“What?” Joker asked with a frown.

Instead of answering, he tried laughing, ending in a hysterical giggle. “I just needed to win and I’d be set… she’s not my wife, she doesn’t matter. She shouldn’t matter…”

“She does matter because she’s a person who deserves love and respect,” Joker said.

“Women should serve men,” he replied, then started sobbing. “N-no, that is a sin… I would hate anyone who did to me what I do to her. But I didn’t care since she was mine to do what I wanted with. Hell, I just didn’t want to be a loser, but I was worse.” He screamed and trembled as he vanished.

“Uh, I hope he calms down,” Ace said, her ears tilting down. “If his real world self cracks like this, it could be bad for us.”

“Yeah, but even our major targets could get themselves together after their defeat,” Joker said. “I hope he doesn’t hurt himself or others before he turns himself in.”

“Right. But phew, that battle wore me out. You?”

“Yeah, that was rough,” Joker said. “I don’t think we want to go further down from here for now. Let’s just get back to Leblanc for tonight.”

“Sure, let’s go.”

Chou was tired enough that she went straight home and straight to bed instead of trying to do anything more.

* * *

6/15

In the morning, Chou headed off on an earlier train to get the article printed at the print shop and drop by the newspaper club’s room. A girl was typing on a computer there; she paused on seeing her come in. “Hello, did you need something? This is the work room for the school newspaper.”

“Yes, I have an article to turn in on behalf of the occult club,” Chou said, taking out her notebook to get it.

“Oh right, that club was accepted as a science club,” she said. “It’s odd, but I suppose it makes some sense.”

“Mr. Hiruta offered to be the adviser,” she said, passing over her article.

She nodded seriously at that. “That would be why. He’s got some fascinating or morbid stories and always manages to bring it all back to science. If you’ve got time, take a chair and let me see this a minute.”

“Sure.” She got a quick glance at the article the girl was writing; it was about the track team and their trials with Kamoshida and Yamauchi.

Taking out a red pen, she made some marks and asked about making adjustments. “I hope you aren’t offended,” she said at the end of it. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist.”

“It’s fine, I’d like it to be as good as it can be,” Chou said.

“This will be a good addition,” she said, nodding to herself. “A tasty hook to readers wanting to learn more. And these guardian spirits are quite interesting. You have a method to summon these Personas?”

Chou nodded. “I do because I asked some people, but I haven’t gotten to tell the club yet. We’ll discuss it at the next meeting.”

Maybe I’ll drop by to see,” she said, giving a smile. “Thank you, I’ll get it into this week’s paper.”

“Thank you, we’re looking forward to it,” she said.

Intending on doing some homework, Chou headed off to her homeroom. There weren’t many people in, but Yuuki was. “Good morning, you’re in early,” he said, giving her a smile.

“I wanted to have plenty of time to turn in that article for the club,” Chou explained. “It’ll be in this week’s paper.”

“Great, thanks!” Then he scratched his head and looked disappointed. “Well, we had a vote yesterday for club leadership. I got voted for club treasurer, even though I was the one who got the club started.”

“They might trust you with the club funds since you ran the volleyball team for a while,” she said.

“I guess,” he said, a little cheered up. “I just hope that they keep it as a science club; the club president just chatted with his friends after the vote.”

“Well I’ve got info on how to awaken a Persona outside of dreams,” Chou said.

Yuuki’s eyes brightened. “Really? That’s great! How’d you learn that?”

“I’ve met some interesting people the past couple of months,” she said. “It’s not how to summon a Persona right in the room with you; I don’t know about that. But if someone doesn’t have a Persona, this does work. I tried it out with some other friends yesterday.”

“We’ll definitely have to bring up that topic next time,” he said. “Can you come by tomorrow? Maybe you can help keep things on topic.”

“Sure, and I’ll try.” Yuuki had his own work to do, so she went over to her desk.

While she was solving problems in the workbook that should come up next week, Chou overheard some girls nearby talking about some scam artists in Shibuya. “I haven’t walked around there alone since I ran into some crazed druggie,” one of them said. “Now the news shows are suggesting that we be careful with all strangers around there.”

“Is it real or some scare tactic? Because I haven’t had any trouble around Shibuya.”

“You shouldn’t be there alone, at least.”

Behind Chou, Seong muttered, “It’s definitely a problem.”

“Is it getting dangerous to work around there at night?” Chou asked, turning to him. “You work late over there.”

He shrugged. “Well it’s actually not bad at night, though there are rumors of some assassin lurking the streets. But the scam artists? They’re hanging around in the daytime, especially in the afternoon right when schools get out. You know that gym I work at? They’ve had meetings with each other and victims out in that alleyway. And most of the policemen in the area don’t care.”

“Are they paid off?” she wondered. Iwai did say that there was the one officer he trusted in the area.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they are,” Seong said. “I’ve also seen people beat up real badly around there, and called for an ambulance for them too. The mafia members that don’t look dangerous are out on the streets offering easy jobs with high pay, in order to steal credit card numbers, bank info, or set up blackmail with drugs and prostitution. I mean, I’m still looking for better work than the beef bowl job, but I’m not taking their bait.”

“That does sound scary,” Chou agreed. That was next on the agenda, going after Kaneshiro.

“My foster parents would give me more hell than the mafia would,” he joked. Although, something seemed serious in him too. “You should avoid being around Shibuya alone, that or avoid talking to strangers with a tacky sense of fashion and offers that are too good to be true.”

“Good advice,” she said.

Classes went by as usual, better than the first half of the semester since most of the teachers were on new material. Chou got asked a few questions that she answered correctly. By now, her classmates were used to that. There was a point in social studies where Mr. Ushimaru asked another tough question of the class and a few of her classmates glanced over to see if she would answer. Which she did; Ushimaru gave her a look like the right answer messed up his plan somehow, then relented and went ahead with his lecture. Actually, she hadn’t gotten around to messing with him yet and exams were about a month away. This should be a good time as the other students were losing interest in rumors about Kobayakawa now that he was fired. Tomorrow, she could do something then.

At the end of classes, Chou took out her phone to send a message to Futaba. ‘Hey, how’re you doing?’

She got a text almost immediately, but not from Futaba. It was Ryuji. ‘I forgot to tell you earlier, but we’re having an open practice in the gym so people can see if they want to join us. Come over if you want!’

That sounded like a good idea. ‘Alright, I’ll be there in a bit.’

While Ryuji may have forgotten to tell her, word had gotten out and a good number of people came into the gym for sprints and laps. Chou got to properly meet the new boys’ gym teacher too, actually the old track team coach that Kamoshida had gotten fired. Mr. Mushashi was a big boisterous man as well, but he was jolly instead of smoldering with anger. Throughout the exercises, he was encouraging to everyone, cheering them on and letting them know what they did right before pointing out how they could improve. What kind of excuse had the principal found to fire a gym teacher like this?

The practice went pretty well. Chou could keep up with a few of the track team members, although Ryuji was now faster than her as his legs were getting stronger. Better than that was how the other students didn’t make a fuss about her being there. These students weren’t afraid of her anymore. A few of the other track team members actually cheered her on too and congratulated her for getting a good sprint time. It was almost like being back at her old school again.

Mushashi gave a small talk once practice was done. “Some of you might remember me from a while ago; I’m mighty glad to be back here at Shujin! Things have been rough the past year, but we can’t let that kind of trouble keep us down! Our team is going to focus on sticking together, improving ourselves, and making the school a better place. Whether you join us today or not, I hope that all of you try meeting those goals yourselves. Trophies and titles don’t really matter; happiness and harmony do. I wish you all good luck through the rest of the year.”

As people started leaving, Ryuji brought her over to Mushashi. “This is Chou, the one who’s been helping get us back together.”

“I didn’t do much but yell at you guys a time or two,” Chou said.

Mushashi chuckled. “Sometimes that’s what stubborn folks need. And I hear you got Ryuji here back in the game; that’s a good call. Thanks for being around and helping out.”

“No problem,” Chou said. “But I’ll have to decline joining the team for now. I’m trying to get academic honors, so my focus is on extra reports and such.”

“You topped mid-terms, so I don’t see how that’d be a problem,” Ryuji said.

“It’s a problem when some of the teachers still aren’t sure of me,” she said.

“Good luck in that,” Mushashi said. “And if you do change your mind, we’ll welcome you here.”

Once they’d both changed, she and Ryuji headed to Shibuya’s beef bowl shop. “This is a nice time to drop in because they’ve usually refilled the bins but the crowds haven’t showed up yet,” he said. “How was practicing with the team for you?”

“It was pretty good,” she said. “People are easing up around me, which is great.”

Ryuji got a big grin at that, so he probably had something to do with it “Great, glad to hear it.”

“Were you talking about me behind my back?” she teased him.

“Kinda,” he said, then laughed. “Since I rejoined the team and became the captain, I managed to get a good reputation again. It’s something you don’t realize how good it is until you don’t have it, that and somewhere to belong. So I figured, I ought to do something good with this. I’ve been telling people that you’re a good person, and you just had the bad luck to get framed for something you didn’t do. I didn’t say much more than that, but it looks like it’s working.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Chou said. “But thank you.”

Ryuji shook his head. “But you pushed me to stop feeling sorry for myself and get stuff done. I thought being a leader might be nice, but so much responsibility that it’d be more of a pain. But I’ve been having a blast leading the team and trying to get times for the whole team down, not just myself. Having Mr. Mushashi back is awesome too; he congratulated me on being elected captain and we’ve already had some good talks about it. He’s even cool about me having bleached hair.”

“That’s a surprise out of a teacher,” she said.

“But it’s things like that which make me glad he’s back. Plus, if I stopped bleaching my hair, Ann would be the only blond person in school and I know that makes her self-conscious.” Then he shrugged. “Uh, don’t tell her that’s one reason I’m keeping my hair like this. Pretend it’s a side benefit.”

“Got it,” Chou said.

“Though being on the team will make it harder to just hang out like this,” Ryuji said. “We kinda lost track of the tutoring too, but we’ll still meet up for lunch.”

She nodded. “And I’ll bug you guys to study around exam time.”

“I should be improving my grades, so yeah, we’ll do that,” he said. “And if anybody gives you trouble, I’ll be around to back you up. Just ask.”

“Same here,” Chou said, feeling something like what had happened with Ann recently. Igor had picked a timely moment to neutralize these Confidant connections.

“You know, my Persona is Captain Kidd, a pirate,” Ryuji said. “He’s been telling me to not be afraid to rebel against jerks. A while ago, I told him in a dream that I wanted to protect people who were being thrown down like I was. And he was proud of that! And these Persona are kinda like a part of you, but also like guardian spirits? So I feel like I’m doing even better than I was last year now. And you’ve finally got a Persona too, huh? I’m sure you’ll do better too.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I didn’t know who my Persona was when they showed up, couldn’t even tell if they were a man or woman. But they seem cool.”

“Your Persona’s like that, huh?” Ryuji asked. “Though it doesn’t seem too strange with you.” They kept chatting over the meal, then went their separate ways.

Although Chihaya confirmed that she was at a wall with Sojiro, Chou still volunteered to help out at the cafe. Sojiro claimed that he got less business during the rainy season, although Chou saw the usual evening customers coming and going. As the evening went on, an unexpected pair walked in the door: Sae Niijima and Goro Akechi. They both had briefcases; they must be working with each other. “Good evening,” Sae said. “Could we get two combos, please?”

“Sure enough,” Sojiro said, starting to work on the coffee. Chou went to plate up the curry.

“Wait, Amamiya-san?” Akechi asked, tilting his head. “You work here?”

“I live here,” she said, since that was something he could readily find out as a detective. Then a fun idea occurred to her. Given who was here, this could be great.

“Oh, you two know each other?” Sae asked, mildly surprised.

“Yes, we’ve talked on a couple of occasions,” Akechi said.

Chou nodded. “Yeah, and there was something I wanted to tell you last time, but it kept slipping my mind.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, unknowingly walking into her trap.

“Next time you go on a date with someone, don’t talk only about yourself,” she said.

Sae laughed at that; even Sojiro chuckled as Akechi blanched at it. “She has a point,” Sae said. “But let’s focus on business here.”

“Y-yes,” Akechi said. “Sorry.”

Once the two of them were at a table discussing a case, Sojiro asked, “You went on a date with that guy?”

She nodded. “It was a chance encounter and he asked me to discuss things over dinner. He had interesting stories, but yeah, it was all about him.”

“That would be a negative.” Then he shrugged. “It’s your life; take things responsibly, okay?”

“Sure thing,” she said.

Since he liked the meal, Akechi mentioned that he might drop by again. That would be one way to keep tabs on him. But it’d also be a way for him to keep tabs on her; that would have to be kept in mind.


	51. The Bank in the Sky

6/16

Futaba: Sorry I didn’t respond earlier.

Chou: It’s fine. You okay?

Futaba: Eh sure.

Futaba: just haven’t felt like chatting

Chou: It happens.

Futaba: I have been looking into playing Gun About on my computer.

Futaba: the controller is the problem.

Chou: It would be.

Chou: I can go with you to the arcade if you want.

Futaba: nah, don’t like crowds.

Futaba: we can chat later.

Chou: Whenever you feel up to it.

The train got into Aoyome-Itome station at a good time, giving Chou a few more minutes than usual. Since it had, she lowered her aura and slipped into Mr. Ushimaru’s homeroom. Students were coming and going, so she got no attention that way. She took the chalk, drew a star, and wrote a message: ‘Ushimaru- Don’t forget to teach ALL exam material this semester.’ After sticking the chalk out of place on the teacher’s desk, she left for her own homeroom.

The other students had a good laugh about it, at least out of Ushimaru’s sight. Chou even spotted a pair of teachers joking about the message. From them, she learned that Ushimaru had demanded to know who did that from others over lunch. Of course, none of them knew. Chou headed to the occult club meeting as she’d promised to be there.

When Chou came in, Yuuki and a few others were in. A few others trickled in, including Suzy. “Hi!” she said on bounding in. “I heard you guys had a way to awaken Personas and I had to be here for it!”

“We do?” one of the other members asked with interest.

“We do,” Yuuki said. “The club president isn’t here yet, but we could get started. Chou, you had the information, so would you tell us about it?”

She nodded. “Sure, but we may as well make it an experiment too, right? Who here has a Persona?” Out of fifteen of them there, she, Yuuki, and two others did. “Okay, I’ve tried this method out even though I had mine awakened in my dreams. Let me write out the steps here. From my source, this was a fad among teenagers years ago. She wasn’t sure what made it work or not work, but having someone with a Persona seems to help.” She wrote the instructions on the board.

“Ah, so trying it with or without a Persona user?” Yuuki said. “That shouldn’t be hard. If no one else is using neighboring rooms, we could use them too.”

They split off into different rooms. One group of four had no Persona user with them; a second group had Yuuki to start things off. Meanwhile, Chou observed another group of four that had no Personas. Once they had the circle complete, Chou heard from Philemon. “You know that as you are a Trickster, a Persona can be triggered in them all today because you taught the method to them.”

“Guess that throws off the experiment,” she said. “But it helps, right? Because a Persona can’t become a Shadow that creates a Palace.”

“True,” they said. “There is another matter that awakening Personas helps with: it is far more difficult to trigger a mental shutdown or psychotic break in a person who has a Persona. It is not impossible, just very difficult.”

“That’s a good thing to know.” In fact, it might be worthwhile to spread gossip about that, to interest more people in protecting themselves.

“There could be danger if someone doesn’t accept their Persona,” they warned. “But I’m sure you can handle that.

On gathering the club back together, the others were excitedly talking about how the game had worked for all of them. Chou told them that she hinted about it in the article, so they might want to remember the game to tell others when they got interested. Of course, none of them could figure out how to summon their Persona while awake. The others did report that they could hear from their Personas.

As did she, but Arsene also had a warning. ‘I could manifest in reality if you wanted, in the right place. But I don’t think this is the time. With that artist drawing us, we need to avoid giving ourselves away.’

‘We should figure something out,’ Chou thought.

The rest of club was spent discussing if the school might be a special place for the occult and how they would determine that. Plans were made to research that and spend a few meetings testing the school ground. Since she was the one who came up with today’s experiment, Chou went on the Young Occultists message board to post the method for the other branches of the club. She also made the request for others to try the experiment to confirm their findings. Was that enough to trigger awakenings? She’d best keep track of this.

Near the end of it, she got a text. Not from Futaba, but Iwai. ‘If you’re up for it, we can handle both our deals tonight. But I need to know if you’re in in ten minutes.’

Chou glanced around, then went to her bag at the edge of the room. Morgana was lounging in a chair nearby, so she put her bag on the desk to pretend to look through it. Meanwhile, she put the phone near Morgana. “You up for a mission?” she whispered. Fortunately, someone was talking loudly and drawing the attention of everyone else.

Morgana gave it a look, then nodded. “Sure thing.”

“Good, me too,” she said quietly, then replied to Iwai. ‘I’m in; I should be able to get to Shibuya around six.’

Iwai said to let him know when she was there and he’d give her further instructions then. After more discussion, the meeting ended and most everyone left for the day. Suzy stayed a bit longer to help Yuuki with some last duties. “Hey, I wanted to show you someplace related to the occult,” Suzy said. “Cause your our tech admin now and there’s lots of cool stuff you should know! You want to come too, Chou?”

“Sorry, I’ve got something to do soon,” she said. “But where are you going?”

“A church in Kanda,” she said. “They say angels have appeared there, and angels are practically demons. We also need to talk about tech ghosts! Cause you’re gonna help find them and prove their existence!”

“I am?” Yuuki asked, bewildered at the idea.

“If you want,” she quickly corrected. “I’m sure it’ll be fun! And we need to prove to the world that the occult is real. Finding a tech ghost should go a long ways towards that; it could be revolutionary!”

“I’ll have to look into it,” Yuuki said. “Some of it might be things that untrained users aren’t familiar with. But that could be interesting.”

“Have fun,” Chou said. Yuuki was hiding disappointment that she wasn’t coming, but he should be fine.

In Shibuya, she called Iwai before going to his shop. He had specific instructions for her. She went into the diner and spotted him there. Just as he said, the table by the empty bench wasn’t taken. Chou went there, ordered a Nostalgic Steak for her meal, then worked on a report for science; he’d just told her to look busy, so might as well get something done.

A man arrived before long and sat right down across from Iwai. For a while, they talked like old buddies. There was even a mention of their demon hunting days, albeit in terms that anyone else overhearing them shouldn’t realize what they were talking about. Iwai tried a simple question of what his buddy was doing lately. Instead of answering, he asked if Iwai was interested in rejoining them. Iwai coughed and said that he couldn’t risk the business he’d built.

The cough was supposed to be a signal to call him. However, the Persona she had thought he might be better off if the call was held off a little. Or maybe it was a chance to tease him without actually getting him angry. Iwai coughed again, so Chou took her phone.

“You coming down with something?” his friend asked. “Or you too used to your dusty old place?”

“Eh, I’m just getting old, like you are,” Iwai said. That got the other man nervous right as Iwai’s phone rang. After a moment, he said, “I ought to take this, so I’m going to head out.”

“Sure, it was good seeing you,” his friend said.

Iwai waited until he’d left the diner to quietly say, “If I know Tsuda, he’s making a call about now. Keep the line open.”

“Mmhmm,” Chou replied, shifting her phone to look at it. That shouldn’t look strange to anyone who happened to see her, even the guy behind her.

“Hey, yeah, I was just talking with him,” Tsuda said. “He’s certainly heard something; he was trying to dig info out of me. Can’t be sure of how much he knows… of course it’s fine! It’s all going to work out. Just trust me.”

“Hmph,” Iwai murmured on his end.

“Well he asked to see me, so he must be thinking about coming back. I’ll keep talking to him… of course not about business until we’re sure he’s back. I’ve got things under control; we’ll beat out these rivals using foreign ideas and take the streets back. Sure, got it. We’ll talk more in person.” He then hung up and took his bill to pay.

“I’m back,” Chou said once she saw the man leave the diner.

“And he left?”

“Yes.”

“Tsuda’s certainly up to something,” Iwai said. “And it’s got him nervous too; he was lying through his teeth there.”

“And it’s something he’s counting on you to help with?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, it makes me more suspicious. But I’m not going back, so it’s going to be tough getting things out of him. I’ll look more into it elsewhere. For today, though, I’ll meet up with you at the shop when you’re ready.”

“Sure, see you then.”

Chou headed over to Untouchable after eating. As she was inviting Iwai in with him knowing it, it made most sense to enter the Metaverse from his shop. The goods in the shop changed, from old military gear and imported goods to random boxes and kitchenware. “What’s with this stuff?” Iwai asked. “And your clothes.”

“Kaneshiro thinks your shop would have this stuff,” Joker said, then patted her coat. “And this is protection against being in a realm like this, formed by the will of rebellion and my initial Persona. I’m Joker here, and this is my partner Ace.”

“Hey there,” Ace said. “This is the world as seen through Kaneshiro’s perceptions and distortions, so we need rebellion to keep ourselves apart.”

Iwai gave Ace a look, then shrugged. “This would all run off a dream-like logic. In that case…” he snapped his fingers. “Gilgamesh! What can you do for me?”

A fierce-looking man appeared briefly, dressed in leather with ancient jewelry of gold, ivory, and lapis lazuli. The Persona nodded and changed Iwai’s appearance. At first glance, it didn’t seem that rebellious as he was in a gray suit with a matching hat. But his face was covered with a studded black mask, his gloves had spikes, and a burnt patch was on the left arm. Joker nodded. “You should have a code name too, even if you just help us with this.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me if you stick to the theme and call me Jack.”

“Suits me,” Ace said.

“Got it, Jack,” Joker said. “Our goal today is to get into the bank and find a safe room. That’s a place we can move to by magic, to infiltrate at a later date. Once we get there, we’ll figure out if we want to go further.”

Jack brought out his own model gun, another handgun that looked different from Joker’s. “Sounds good.”

Ace crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re normally stealthy, and we want to be careful of drawing Kaneshiro’s attention to you, Jack. So let’s see if you can hide in the shadows.”

“It’s more dream logic,” Joker said. “Draw the shadows to yourself and will yourself to be hidden.”

Once Jack proved that he got it, they went outside, explained a bit about the cognitions, and watched the bank hover overhead. It didn’t seem inclined to stop until Jack dug in his pocket and pulled out his shop keys. He jangled them in the air, causing a spotlight to shine down and catch them. While it slowed down, the bank continued to float ahead until it was over the opening of the plaza. It rolled down a carpet made up of yen and folded it up a staircase.

A group of four cognitions started down the staircase. The three of them hid right by the stairs to watch them come down. As Seong had suggested, all four of them wore loud tacky shirts and equally tacky pants. “Hey!” one of them called into the street. “Hey shop owner! We’ve come to chat with you!”

“Did they bail?” another asked.

“They’re around.” The four cognitions went to search the streets, letting them head up the stairs unnoticed.

At the top, there was a grand gated entrance to a bank made of gold and black stone. It was surrounded by a garden of rose bushes, orchids, and cherry trees, all in full bloom with ephemeral bills drifting in the air and straight through the windows. Some large piggy bank statues stood off to the sides. Now that the staircase was down, ATM cognitions were walking in and out of the large double doors. There were no Shadows or guard cognitions outside; he was confidant that he couldn’t be found and would be protected.

“If we go in the front door, I can guarantee that we’re going to be watched closely,” Jack said. “Security seems lax out here, but banks don’t mess around. I’m sure this one is no different.”

“Ideas are important in the Metaverse,” Ace said. “There’s a good chance that there’s a second entrance, a secret one.”

“Possibly,” Jack said. “The windows would be rigged too.”

“The statues seem suspicious,” Joker said. “If not them, we can take a walk around this garden.”

But they didn’t need to go any further than the bronze statue on the right. There were some smudges on the pig’s snout, showing that it could be pressed. That moved the plaque aside, revealing another button that moved the statue aside. If that was their entrance, there might be other mechanisms gating their progress inside. The stairs under the statue brought them through a short hall to some stairs back up to a room on the first floor. This room had an untended teller booth, a room safe, and a table with a few chairs.

Jack glanced around, then nodded. “Makes sense. In a bank affiliated with a crime group, there’s going to be at least one room like this for illicit deals and meetings. That door will be locked or guarded.”

“Then we need to expect some other rooms like this?” Ace asked.

He nodded. “I’d check around in case there’s a proof of affiliation here. These cognitive beings might see such a proof and not question it, depending on how reliable he thinks his men are.”

“I can get in the safe, so I’ll check there,” Ace said, heading over. Jack went to check the teller station while Joker took a good look around the room. There was an inactive camera up in the corner. If she focused with Third Eye and projected what the camera could see… it would sweep across to catch everything in the room. Past the door, she sensed a strong Shadow out there. It seemed equivalent to what they’d found in Kyoko’s Palace.

“Found some standard bank cards,” Jack said, holding one up. “You might as well take it to flag the bank down in case this trip doesn’t work out.”

“Good idea,” Joker said. “I’m watching a security camera; it’s off right now.”

“I’d expect those everywhere too,” he said, coming over to offer the card he’d found. “In reality, this might be conserving power or not having the people to watch everywhere at once.”

“Got it!” Ace said, opening up the safe. “Phew, it smells like fear in here. A lot of photos and keys…”

“Blackmail collateral, I’d guess,” Joker said.

Jack nodded. “Could be personal photos taken off the internet from careless folk. Could also be things that could be taken for criminal evidence. Anything you can do about them?”

“Well the police are letting his group do what they like, so I wouldn’t turn these photos in there,” Joker said. “They could also be used to embarrass the victims; it’s probably best that they disappear when the Palace does.”

“It’s unfortunate since these folks would need to restore their reputation, but I see the point,” Jack said.

Ace came over with a card in hand. “Here’s this; it has more substance than the other things.”

While the glossy plastic resembled the membership card, this card had a shiny steel piggy bank on one side. “It might be the proof we’d like, or just something handy to hold onto. And there is a Shadow hanging around outside the door. Until we find the safe room, it’d be easier to avoid the Shadows or take them by surprise than trying to bluff them. You two ready for a fight?”

“Sure, I’ll get the door,” Ace said, getting into place.

“Yup, let’s see how it goes,” Jack said, holding back for now.

Joker nodded and went to the side of the door to hide in the shadows. Ace carefully turned the knob to open the door without a sound. Outside the room, the Shadow had its back to the door, watching the halls. Joker waved Ace to open the door further so they could get a better look past the Shadow. There was a patrolling Shadow out in the hall. After waiting half a minute, that Shadow moved to another area. Joker then jumped the Shadow and tore off its mask, revealing an oni. Jack proved that his gun was quiet but powerful, finishing off the oni after a couple of attacks from Joker and Ace.

“I know how it works, but it’s still weird how the models work,” Jack said, pulling his gun’s trigger as he pointed it at a wall. It didn’t do anything. “It wasn’t even looking at me.”

“You get used to it,” Joker said.

There was a large lobby not far from the meeting room, grandiose with cognitions of ATM customers and suited tellers busy at imitating a bank’s normal day. In these narrow halls, there were patrolling Shadows, cameras that turned on and off, and many small rooms that were not safe rooms. Some rooms had cognitions or Shadows in them, but most seemed empty. If they’d taken someone with no knowledge of the Metaverse straight into this bank, they might be fooled into thinking this place was normal. At least until they ran into the Shadows.

After hurrying upstairs while a camera was off, they spotted a dog Shadow. It wasn’t like the white monster of a dog that had guarded Shido’s Palace; this was a plain dark Shadow that took a dog’s shape. Although they were hiding, it sniffed them out and barked loudly. The lights turned red and guards ran over while they had to fight off the dog. And more started coming, joining in the fight. Jack was getting winded after three waves and much more fuss would send the security level high enough to get them kicked out.

“This is no good,” Joker said, casting a Media when she had a moment.

Ace pointed out a door. “There, run!”

Spotting Shadow guards running up the stairs, Joker cast a Maragi at them. Several of the Shadows here resisted fire, but it gave the other two a moment to start running. Once they reached the door, she sprinted after them and ducked inside before the guards could reach her. Ace slammed the door shut; one of the Shadows slammed their body against the door, but this was a safe room. The Shadows shouldn’t be able to get in.

“What the hell is a powder room doing in here?” Jack asked, looking over a pink mirror with lights and a sink. A well-stocked make-up cabinet was to the side, with a chaise lounge opposite it.

“This is like a bathroom?” Ace wondered. “But without a toilet?”

“Pretty much,” Joker said. There was a poster on the wall of a large man with pale purple skin and a dark purple suit. In the corner, there was what looked like lipstick spelling out, ‘Junya’ with hearts and sparkles. “It seems he has some female groupies. His mind has given them their own space, but it’s somewhere he doesn’t have control over. Like a women’s restroom to a man, and visa versa.”

“I’m surprised that his mind would do that, but you got what you wanted,” Jack said, checking over himself. “Man, this makes me feel old. That wasn’t too long, but it felt long.”

“That was a lot of Shadows in a short time,” Joker said. “We’re going to have to leave and wait a bit for security to ease back. But thanks for getting us in.”

“Sure, you’re welcome,” Jack said. “But I think I’ll decline any further excursions if I can help it. You two be careful doing this, even if they can’t identify you.”

“We will be,” Joker said. “Ready to head out? We’re going to return back to your shop before leaving the Metaverse, so we don’t come out somewhere strange.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Back in the real world, Chou helped Iwai close up his shop for the evening. He wore out not long after, so she took care of putting a few things in the back while he checked on his records and the register. Since he’d seen her before, Morgana sat on the counter and watched. She sneezed at one point and remarked, “I don’t know what’s dustier, this place or ours.”

“Did your cat just talk?” Iwai asked, raising an eyebrow at it.

Morgana’s jaw dropped. “Did you just hear me?!”

“She talks,” Chou said. “Maybe because you heard her in the Metaverse, you can hear her here.”

“Wow, this is great!” Morgana said, looking up at him. “Chou was the only person who could hear me!”

“Maybe I would be better off if I couldn’t,” Iwai said sarcastically. The bell over the door jangled, so Morgana jumped down behind the counter. Chou stepped out of the storage area to see a young teenager there. “Kaoru, what are you doing here on your own? I told you it was dangerous around here lately.”

“My club ran late and I missed a train here,” he said, seeming sheepish. “Can I help you out?”

Iwai frowned, although Third Eye showed a conflict of being happy at it too. Was Kaoru part of the reason he was keeping out of the Metaverse? Her Hanged Man Persona suggested that Iwai did value family, both in protecting this boy and being with him. “He asked me to help close up because he’s tired,” Chou said. “Otherwise we would have been doing lessons on models.”

“Oh, really?” Kaoru asked, concerned. “Dad does work hard; let me help out too and we can go home together. And I can take care of dinner.”

“Since you’re already here, I guess that’s better,” Iwai said gruffly. “Alright, grab a broom and sweep up.”

He even insisted on Chou coming with them to the train station, which was fine by her. After saying good night to Sojiro, she went to the bathhouse and relaxed.

* * *

A photo of teenage boy with his face swollen up to where he was barely recognizable; his brother had failed to pay up hush money and so this ‘random crime’ had occurred. A photo of the brother, having hung himself out of shame, as he should for being a loser. A photo of a teenage girl passed out naked on a bed; she’d be discarded as a sex worker soon for no longer being attractive from the bruises and scars. As a plus, she was hooked on painkillers and would be begging them to do anything to her just for the drugs. He could squeeze out some more money out of her by passing her off to one of the violent clients to dispose of. A photo of a young man in the hospital on collapsing from overwork. But he couldn’t pay off the bills that would be dumped on him in the near future because his credit was maxed out and his bank account drained, thank you very much. They were all losers in the game of life.

And he was the victor, internally laughing at these photos. He had done this to them without coming face to face with them. This was due to his wit, his intelligence, his ambition, his power… and a bit of luck, true, but it all combined to make him a giant, looming over Tokyo and able to do as he pleased. No one could catch him. Before the year was out, they would all fear Junya Kaneshiro.

A television in sight had the drone of the news on-going. It was a pity they were keeping a calm face, since the lead producer of that studio had been killed after being exposed as another loser. But out of sight, they had to be sweating. Junya knew that Mr. Hashimoto had squealed about the sex and drugs going on there; he also wasn’t worried because the Hashimotos didn’t have direct contact with him. They shouldn’t even know his name. While he had discussed the matter with the studio’s contacts, he considered axing them just in case. It was a slim chance they’d be discovered as they’d been using false names. The main reason to keep them was that the police had already been paid off to hush up any possible connection. It hurt to throw money at problems, since he should be the problem people threw money at to solve. But there was no denying the effectiveness of the solution.

Unless of course it was people paying him. They should keep paying him because he owned them. Such losers.

“The police are reminding people to be careful with all personal information and beware of these common signs of a phishing scam.” The report went on.

At his side, an attractive young woman said, “Oo, are they talking about you?”

“What they’re allowed to say,” Junya said in disdain. At least they were saying it in a good way; anyone who fell for their lines deserved to be fleeced for being stupid. And the vast majority of people were stupid. They’d listen to this news report and think they knew everything. However, the credit card phishing was only a part of what they did. A profitable part, as everything Junya did was, but one they could hold back on if need be.

“Everybody does what you say, especially me,” she said, leaning into him and smiling greedily at him.

She was hiding something from him, or hiding someone.

At that moment, Junya felt a pang in his head. What brought this on? The pain and the moment of doubt. This girl, like others he had, had no reason to betray him. She was a parasite and she knew it. As such, betrayal would be no benefit for her. But he still felt like she’d hidden some thief away out of his reach. Or maybe a whole gang of them. No one should be stealing from him.

Well, it was just a feeling. And a headache. Shutting the TV off, he checked on his suitcase. Still there, still locked. As it should be. “I’m heading home early,” he said, letting her go. “Tell the others not to bother me unless something important comes up.”

“Sure,” she said. She was quick-witted enough to realize when he didn’t want to be bothered. Or maybe she didn’t care. He didn’t care as long as she gave him what he wanted.

To be sure, he gave the same orders to the club’s bouncer before heading on. While heading off to his suite, Junya wondered briefly if this was some thief from the Metaverse, like the Phantom Thieves that had wrecked the Hashimotos. He did have some information on the subject in his mafia’s files. However, he’d had the government agent contact him through the Metaverse once. That had been a clear memory, not this vague feeling. The agent also said that he had been difficult to contact. While he didn’t say why, it made Junya feel confidant that he was safe even from the Phantom Thieves. He left no tracks; he was very careful about that.

This was likely just stress and an evening of relaxing should be enough to banish it.

* * *

Both Kenzo and Kyoko Hashimoto had given the police a large list of people who needed to be investigated for drug use, drug trafficking, or sex crimes. The first group had been brought in for questioning today. However, the Hashimotos were now dead. A suicide note had been found in the possession of the their killer. As a result, it was being called an open and close case where nothing could be done because the suspect was dead.

But was it really? Sae wasn’t entirely convinced. Shame could drive a person to such an act, especially in the entertainment field as their public image was vital. But was that really it? She spoke with a lab technician she trusted; he let her into the police morgue to check on the bodies. There, she found that the mortician was still doing his own investigations. “Looking into the cause of death?” Sae asked.

“That’s clearly the gunshot,” the mortician said. “Kenzo, Kyoko, and the nurse were all shot fatally in the side of the head, while the suspect shot herself in the mouth. However, the nurse was who made me suspicious; Yumi has no signs of giving a struggle or trying to run. I asked about crime scene photos and was told there was nothing important.”

The technician frowned. “Whoever took the photos was sloppy. There’s only two of them, one for each hospital room. But I did notice the same: there’s no signs of struggle in either one. These were clean kills.”

“The nurse at least should have panicked,” Sae said. “Were there signs of a psychotic break?”

“Yes, look over here.” The mortician turned to the other bed where the nurse’s body was. There were familiar black streaks on her face. “Both the nurse and the killer had the distinctive streaks. I don’t know if you got my notes, but I recently did some investigation of my own and discovered that the black ooze was also a symptom of the Apathy Syndrome outbreak around the turn of the century. There are differences; victims of mental shutdowns or psychotic breaks either die or show little brain activity, while victims of Apathy Syndrome were known to have REM-like brain patterns and compulsively talk.”

“I’ve suspected that,” Sae said. “And was blocked from investigating myself. Apathy Syndrome was determined to have supernatural causes, correct?”

The mortician nodded. “Yes, and I’ve got permission to search the supernatural medical database. I’m still running tests, but for this particular case, the qualities of the ooze from the victims match that of Apathy Syndrome victims. And this is a clear case of the nurse having a mental shutdown and the killer having a psychotic break.”

“That should be investigated further,” Sae said, feeling excited. Perhaps she didn’t have to work on her own. “Then why wasn’t it?”

“This whole thing seems staged,” the mortician said, glancing at the technician. “Right?”

“Yes, I helped with the tests,” the technician said. “There’s another oddity that really makes it look that way: both Kyoko and Kenzo had overdosed on sleep medication. While it wasn’t deadly, it would have prevented them from doing anything and it wasn’t some over the counter sleep pills. They’d been given medicine that requires a prescription, one which is normally only accessible by hospitals. Some fingerprints show that it was Yumi here who administered the drug. I wasn’t able to access hospital records to see how the prescription was cleared, nor if Yumi had a suicide note as well.”

“That certainly sounds staged to me,” Sae said. “I should be able to get those records, and I would like copies of your test and autopsy results in this case.”

The mortician nodded. “Yes. Just be careful. If we’re all getting walled off from investigating, we want to figure out why before this work gets discovered.”

Sae nodded. “I agree. Has Akechi asked about this case?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the mortician said. “I rarely speak with him.”

“He consults me frequently,” the technician said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So if he’s interested in this case, he would have asked me. But he hasn’t. I’ve also seen him break down a case on a show, one that we discussed. He got a couple of the evidence details wrong and his conclusion seemed off to what I knew of the case. But then, the police chief has told me on several occasions to cooperate with Akechi and follow his requests.”

“He does have good perspectives,” Sae said. “But the past few times I’ve spoken with him, I’ve noticed him dissuading me from pursuing a supernatural angle for these cases. He’s much nicer about it than the SIU Director, but he’s blocking me just the same. I would like to check this out until we can definitely deny any supernatural explanations, but it seems like we shouldn’t involve Akechi in this.”

The mortician nodded. “Agreed. I’ll do what I can to investigate deaths involved in any of these cases, but I know bodies have been let go or destroyed already.”

“I’m in this too,” the lab technician said. “Oh, and Niijima, since we’re actively working on this together, could you look into something else for me?”

“Sure, what is it?” she asked. She’d have to keep making time for this, but she did not want to let this go. That was as good as admitting that she’d lost.

Tapping a finger against his arm, he said, “One of the things we learned before the Hashimotos died is that the leader of the Phantom Thieves is known as Joker. That reminded me of a paranormal case from the nineties that I heard about: a killer who called himself Joker and said he was led by knowledge of an eldritch being. There’s not much more of a connection, but one of the investigators in that case is currently the police chief of Sumaru City, where this took place.”

“Even if there’s no connection, contacting this chief could be useful,” Sae said. “Alright, I’ll check the records and see what I can come up with. Since it might lead us to a potential contact, I’d like to send them some information to get their opinion of if we should investigate the supernatural further.”

“I’ll gather what we know and write up a report for that,” the technician said.

Of course, if they did get help from those experienced in supernatural investigations, they couldn’t be guaranteed pay for it. This was all on their own time and money. But that might be required to win this case.

To win, Sae was prepared for the sacrifice.


	52. Malpractice and Blackmail

6/17

Alibaba: Hey, have you guys heard of this?

Alibaba: It’s a rumor that’s been around for a while that you can make a request of a vengeful ghost to get back at someone who’s sinned.

Alibaba: But it’s become clear that it’s a way to make a request of the Phantom Thieves to steal someone’s heart.

SkinkB: I heard about it, but thought it was a superstition.

JadedCrys: That’s weird. I’ve heard of the Thieves, but not that.

old_rabbit: This version is new to me.

Alibaba: I’ve been wondering how it works.

SkinkB: Any sent message can be tracked.

BongMissile: I’ve been wondering what kind of program could grab such messages without a trace.

Alibaba: How’s this new, rabbit?

SkinkB: How this ‘vengeful ghost’ gets the messages is key.

JadedCrys: It could just be malware that got on a lot of phones quietly. But why?

old_rabbit: There was a similar thing going around in the nineties about how if you called yourself on a cellphone, you could leave a name of a person for an assassin to kill.

old_rabbit: I traced a few such calls. There was clearly something happening, but it was a pain to track down the number these invalid calls went to.

SkinkB: How was that phone thing working?

old_rabbit: Demons.

SkinkB: Demons?!

BongMissile: Are you tripping?

old_rabbit: I’m serious.

Alibaba: There aren’t any demons in Tokyo.

JadedCrys: You’ve got to be yanking our chains, oldie.

old_rabbit: They could be hiding very well.

JadedCrys: How would you even track demons?

SkinkB: It’d make sense of purposefully doing something invalid.

old_rabbit: It takes a special knowledge and attention to details. Having the assistance of benevolent supernatural beings helps too.

Alibaba: Was this a back in your day thing?

old_rabbit: Heh, might be kiddo.

old_rabbit: If you’re in Tokyo and can trust me, I can analyze such data. You’d need to send a message to these Phantom Thieves with your phone being watched; getting a response would let us make definite statements rather than hypotheticals.

Alibaba: Hmm, well you’re a cool guy.

Alibaba: But I don’t know about having you tap my phone.

old_rabbit: Then get a throwaway phone and let me watch that one. I’m not offended.

Alibaba: Now that I could agree to.

Alibaba: Give me some time and I’ll get it arranged.

old_rabbit: Send me a message when you’re ready.

JadedCrys: You guys are nuts.

* * *

Before school got out, Chou sent a message to Tae asking if she wanted her to come in this week. She replied that she’d gotten things sorted out and had time for her to come in. That decided things. In the clinic, Tae had the medicine ready to go on the tray with some water and rice crackers. “We’ve tested each stage of the medicine now,” she said. “But I’ve adjusted a couple of the stages.”

“So we’re in retest time?” Chou asked.

She nodded. “The fact that the stronger stages gave you trouble is worrisome. You’re healthy, but the patients will not be as resilient. We’ll retry these two stages and adjust if your side-effects remain strong. Then I’ll have to convince the drug company to try my adjustments. That’ll be a headache.”

“That’s for later,” she said, figuring that she’d prefer that answer.

“Right, we need to make sure now that it’s working. Here you are.” She passed over the plastic cup with the medicine.

This version made her feel physically weak, but she was able to keep up conversations with Tae. They talked about the coffee at Leblanc (and Chou was able to give a rundown on the process of making it) and other good places to eat. For some reason, Tae was more sociable today and mentioned places in Tokyo that she liked to visit, like Inokashira Park and the university she studied at. She even talked about an old movie theater in Yongen-Jaya, one she was disappointed about as it was currently shut down.

Someone interrupted the trial again, so Morgana hid and Tae gave Chou the rice crackers before letting them in. “Oh, you’re back,” she said without enthusiasm. “What brings you by a small time clinic, Oyamada?”

“I came by to see what you were still doing open,” he said in disdain. “I told you that you should shut down, but now I’m hearing that you’re stealing patients from me. There was a young girl with bronchitis that I was helping. Now rumors are that you’ve cured her and I failed.”

“I’m fulfilling a local need for a clinic, that’s all,” Tae said calmly.

Glowering at her, he replied, “It’s not all, since you clearly haven’t given up drug development either. Is it because you can’t give up on Miwa-chan? Though I can’t blame you for that. She was such a brave girl, always putting on a smile no matter what she suffered through.”

There was something off about his words, a distortion she could sense with Third Eye. But Tae only caught the surface of it. “Huh? What makes you speak like that about her?”

“It’s unfortunate, but she is no longer with us,” Oyamada said. “Her condition deteriorated since you left.”

“That can’t be true, she was recovering from that,” she insisted. “From the pattern of her symptoms, she should have plenty of time left.”

He shook his head. “You must have miscalculated. It was tragic, but we weren’t able to stop it.”

“No,” Tae said quietly, looking down and steadying herself on her desk.

Oyamada was delighted at that behind the stern expression he wore. “Now that you know that, are you finally going to give up? And don’t go stealing my patients again, then make me come back out here and lecture you.” He then left without further word.

It seemed like Tae hadn’t noticed, still shocked over the news. Chou sat up as Morgana came out of hiding. “What do you think, Morgana?” she asked.

Hopping back up on the bed, she held her ears back. “That man was a complete jerk. Dishonest too; he reeked of it.”

Chou felt unsteady too, but mostly due to the medicine. Still, she held herself confidant like Ann had taught her, and inverted what Morgana had said about hiding her aura. “Hey, Tae?”

There was a feeling like she’d barely gotten Tae’s attention? “Hmm? Oh, don’t push yourself. Um…”

“That man was distorting the truth,” she said. “I’ve had my third eye opened for my work and I could tell.”

“Huh, he was lying about Miwa-chan?” Tae asked, hopeful in it.

Chou shrugged. “Well he didn’t say that she’d died; he said that she’d left, knowing that you would assume the worst of it. He phrased things carefully and enjoyed tormenting you. You might want to check that out.”

After a sigh of relief, she shook her head. “Ugh… what a low blow. There should be plenty of time left to save her, although the time it’ll take to convince the company could drag out. Especially if he interferes.”

Morgana patted Chou’s arm. “Hey, we ought to steal that guy’s heart! He’s definitely distorted.”

She nodded. “Unless we make him tell everyone the truth.”

“There’s little chance of that,” Tae said, sitting back in her chair.

“We’ve done it before with stubborn and proud people,” Chou said.

Catching on, her eyes widened as she looked over. “Huh? You mean, you’d steal his heart?”

She nodded again as she got her phone. “We just need his full name.”

Tae considered it for a moment, then said, “Shoichi Oyamada. I usually don’t wish ill on others, but using a sick girl to harass someone else? That’s ridiculous.”

Once she put in the name, she showed it to Tae. “Spelled like this, right?”

“That’s right.”

Chou sent the note off to become a request, then put her phone away. “I can’t handle it tonight, but we’ll take care of him as soon as possible. Don’t give up yet.”

“Good, thank you. And really, don’t push yourself tonight even though you’re doing better this time. The best thing that would come of clearing my name is that I could go to the pharmaceutical company straight away with my adjustments.”

Smiling, she asked, “That’s in general, but what about personally?”

Tae’s smile was full of relief and hope now. “Well, personally, I could visit Miwa-chan again. I hope she and her parents have forgiven me. Perhaps I could even introduce the two of you.”

Once they’d finished up the day’s trial, Tae helped Chou back home. Chou told Sojiro that she’d be reading for the evening. But after he had gone back home, she went downstairs and called Kawakami over. On hearing that she’d had one of the medical trials, Kawakami offered to make her some rice porridge. They set up the hot plate and a pan upstairs in her room to do so without getting caught on the cafe’s camera. Kawakami acted cute for the first few minutes, but stopped once she sat in the chair and let herself rest a bit.

“I still worry about you wasting time and money on this,” Kawakami said. “But, I do appreciate that you keep requesting me, and that you treat me respectfully, like we should treat people.” She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.

She likely wanted to complain. “Did you have a bad client recently?” Chou asked.

“I have some bad clients, but you’re my dear sweet Master who’s nothing but nice!” she said with Becky’s cheer. Then she sighed again and nodded. “I had a man who was surprised at my age, then he kept pushing me to break rules, because I ‘wasn’t some cute innocent girl.’ Then I had to convince my boss to put him on a blacklist so he doesn’t do anything bad to the younger maids. Both of them acted like I was being a pain for doing so.”

“You don’t treat people like that,” Chou said.

Kawakami nodded. “Right, no matter who they are, no matter who you are. Though people like that man and my boss make me want to not respect them. Hopefully, I can avoid that man. Can’t do much about my boss, though.” Then a ringing came from one of her apron pockets. “Oh, sorry.” She checked it, then got worried. “Uh, sorry, I should take this.”

“Go ahead,” she said. The porridge still had time to cook.

Getting up, she took the call a few feet away. “Hello? I sent in the payment earlier this week; you should have it. Hu-huh? That’s not… I mean… there’s been no mistakes, and this isn’t… um, no! I mean, you don’t have to do that. I’ll get the money. Uh-huh. As usual.” Whoever was talking with her must have hung up abruptly from the look on her face.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Chou said.

“Not in the least,” Kawakami said, nervous and exhausted. “Well, you’ve probably guessed that I’m not working this job for my sister.”

“It was a hunch,” she said.

“But I do need the money. It’s…” she sighed, her shoulders drooping, “it’s apology money. At another school I worked at, there was a trouble student named Taiki Takese. His grades were dropping and he’d gotten into trouble for falling asleep in class. I was asked to tutor him, although the purpose behind it was to discourage him from continuing at our school.”

“That seems rotten.”

Kawakami shrugged. “Perhaps, but it’s a common ploy at the high school level. Education is competitive for students and schools. If a school has too many trouble-making or under-performing students, then it gets a bad reputation and new students won’t apply. And since school isn’t compulsory past middle school, there’s a lot of pressure to push out bad students whenever you can.”

“Still rotten,” Chou said.

“It can be,” she said. “It was with Taiki. In tutoring him, I learned that he was actually intelligent and nice; he wanted to succeed. But he was also working three part-time jobs alongside school. I was able to help him with tutoring, although he was still constantly tired in class. But as he was starting to improve, rumors suddenly popped up all over school that I was favoring Taiki too much, even dating him. That kind of rumor can wreck a teacher’s career, even if we could prove it wasn’t so.”

“Rumors get people to not believe things you say,” she said.

“You’ve had trouble with that too, haven’t you?” Kawakami said sympathetically. But her own troubles were stronger at the moment “Then the principal ordered me to stop tutoring Taiki. Even if he didn’t believe in the dating rumors, he thought Taiki wasn’t worth the effort and Taiki’s foster parents agreed with that.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking unhappy about it. “They were still his family, as they were Taiki’s uncle and aunt; the principal said we had to respect the family’s wishes, although he just wanted to be rid of him. But with that, I had to drop the tutoring for Taiki. He looked so disappointed when I told him. Then he smiled and said he understood, plus he had to hurry off to his after-school job. But not long after that, he got hit by a car and died. It was a rainy day, New Year’s Day at that. The doctors still said that Taiki’s exhausted state was a big factor in his death.”

“It’s tragic,” Chou said. But why did that make her pay apology money? It didn’t seem like the right moment to ask that.

“Right, I wish I could have helped him earlier, or encourage him not to work himself to death.” She sighed again, then explained, “His foster parents were angry at me. They threatened to tell everyone that I was dating Taiki and pushed him to exhaustion to hide it. So I send them money on a regular basis as an apology, along with resigning from my former school and moving to Shujin instead.”

“That’s blackmail against you, not an apology,” she said.

“No, I do need to apologize for what happened,” Kawakami said, ashamed and yet knowing this wasn’t right.

“There’s some distortion going on here,” Morgana said, going to sit by Kawakami’s feet. “Not from her, but it’s influencing her. She could shake it, maybe.”

“Oh, sorry Morgana, I need to check the porridge soon,” Kawakami said, rubbing Morgana’s head. “So I can’t give you a lap.”

“She can tell you’re unhappy,” Chou said.

“More than that, but yeah!” Morgana said, rubbing her head against Kawakami’s leg.

“What was that call about?” Chou asked, being firm in her tone. Hopefully that could work to cut through distortion too.

It worked to get her to admit it. “Mr. Takase asked for a hundred thousand yen this week, claiming that I missed the last few payments. The bank sends me the receipts each time, so they surely went through.”

“Is that way more than he usually asks for?” Chou asked.

She nodded. “Yes, they’re asking for an awful lot… how is anybody supposed to raise that amount of money in a reasonable amount of time? At least, anybody that’s not rich.”

“Did you all agree to a certain amount of money?”

“Why are you questioning me?” Kawakami said weakly.

“You’re letting them take advantage of you if you didn’t,” Chou said. “You don’t deserve that, not when these two jobs exhaust you.”

“Well what am I supposed to do?” she asked, trying to seem angry. Then she yawned. “I mean, I can’t afford a lawyer, but the Takeses keep saying that they will sue me if I stop payment. And I did contribute to his death with the tutoring on top of everything else he was doing…”

“You were trying to help,” Chou said. “But you weren’t making him work three jobs. Why was he doing that?”

“I don’t know. If you’re doing part-time work, it can take that many jobs to put together a living. But he was living with the Takeses…” she frowned a moment, but yawned again. “Uh, sorry. I wonder if I should just quit being a teacher and find a job that pays better. I’m lousy at teaching and end up scrambling to get everything done.”

“Is the latter because these Takeses are pressuring you with blackmail?” Chou asked. “Or do you not like teaching?”

Kawakami shook her head. “No, I love teaching, I’m just not good at it. I like helping students, whether in things that challenge them or in finding the subjects they love. I really shouldn’t focus on one student over another; it has to be the whole class. But I want to help the students who are falling through the cracks through no fault of their own. Like you being judged unfairly as a delinquent from the start, or like Taiki was when his grades dropped due to dealing with the loss of his parents. Education shouldn’t be treated as a business.”

“We can agree to that,” she said.

She paused to check on the porridge, then picked up a bowl and spoon. “All right, the porridge is done.” Once she had the bowl full, she passed it over. “I think I’ll get some myself; there should still be time. And you know, I had decided that I would keep teaching to avoid having another student suffer like Taiki did.” Then she shook her head. “But here I am, unable to do anything for my students, or even myself. Although I brought it upon myself.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Chou said. “You didn’t cause Taiki to die, even indirectly. Did the Takeses blame you for it?”

“Yes, many times,” she said. “But I was helping him. While I could have done more, I shouldn’t be to blame. But I still don’t know what to do. I have to keep working both jobs, or else they’ll sue and I’ll lose my jobs. Well, maybe not this one, but my boss would push more for me to transfer to our sister company. That’s certainly where I don’t want to be.”

“Can you get some help from the school?” she suggested. “Even if you just explain things first.”

She thought about it briefly. “Well if Kobayakawa was still the principal, I’d say that was a lost cause. The staff has been shaken up recently, though. I’m not sure how they’ll react to my story. While I have to think over this, I wonder if there’s some public lawyer that would take my case? But it’d be hard to prove anything without records.”

“I can do something for you, now that you’ve been honest with me,” Chou said.

But she shook her head. “No, don’t bother; you’d get in more trouble.”

“It’s fine,” she said, setting her porridge down to get her phone. “Do you remember the night we bumped into each other in Shibuya?”

“Yes,” she said, although she seemed confused on what she was bringing up.

“As in how I seemed to appear out of nowhere in an empty alleyway?” she added.

Kawakami raised an eyebrow. “Oh right, there was that. I thought I’d just been flustered because of the bad day.”

“I trust you to keep quiet on this, but the truth is, I’m one of the Phantom Thieves.” She transferred them to her layer of the Metaverse, then changed over to her Joker outfit.

“Huh, you?” Her eyes were wide and she gripped the bowl tightly.

Chou nodded and gestured over to Morgana. “Yup, the both of us!” Morgana said, smiling at her.

“Wh-where did you come from?” Kawakami said. “What happened?”

“We’re in the Metaverse, where we enter dreams and steal people’s hearts,” Morgana said. “And I’ve been here the whole time.”

“W-wait, you really…?” her voice trailed off as she looked back at Chou.

“She takes the form of a cat in the normal realm,” she explained. “But she’s my partner, and we can make the Takeses feel the weight of their sins. It’d be just as with Kamoshida and our other targets.”

“Well not as showy unless they prove themselves as big targets,” Morgana said. “But we can get you out of this.”

“I, I don’t know about this,” Kawakami said. “The Takeses aren’t criminals; I’m sure you have more worthy targets out there.”

“But we want to help you,” Morgana said.

Chou nodded. “Yes, but if you need to think over it, it’s fine.” She transferred them back to the normal realm. “If you change your mind, I just need to know their full names. Let me know anytime.”

“You can trust us,” Morgana said.

Kawakami’s mouth gaped open a bit as she stared down at where Morgana was back to being a cat. “Um, sure.” She tried to smile. “I guess we’re really keeping each other’s secrets.”

“I’m sure we can trust you, Ms. Kawakami,” Chou said.

After eating some porridge, she said, “At this point, go ahead and call me Sadayo, it’s fine. You know, I couldn’t talk about it, but I’ve admired the actions of the Phantom Thieves too. People like that junior detective Akechi have been talking up how frightening it is to have someone who can attack others without warning, and without notice. But I noticed that you’re always helping others in your heart thefts, often those who can’t escape their situations on their own. Even that studio producer; I’ve heard from others about how much harassment people have to endure to get into a career of acting or singing. And there was that actor who’d died. Was that really his ghost on live TV?”

Chou nodded. “He hasn’t been the only ghost that we’ve worked with. We even pushed ahead with taking care of the Hashimotos because of meeting with him, as we were going to hold off until well after the social studies trip.”

“Makes sense,” she said, pausing to eat and think. “But then, why are you doing this? I mean, stealing the hearts of corrupt people. You hadn’t even been around school long enough for Kamoshida to get interested in you.”

“I hate seeing jerks win,” she said. “And to be honest, my ultimate goal is to get revenge on the one who put me on probation to save his public image. He was trying to force a woman into his car and I interfered. Not violently, but he made it look that way. While I wouldn’t call myself a hero, I’d like to help as many people as I can along the way.”

“I see. I’ll think this over, but I really don’t think you need to be involved. Well, anymore than you are.” Then she smiled, sincere now instead of playing at Becky. “But thanks for the offer, and the help. I won’t say anything about you to others, but I’ll be rooting you on from the side.”

Maybe she just needed some more time. Chou was tempted to look into things anyhow and take care of these blackmailers. But it was probably better to give her some time to realize that she could escape her situation.

* * *

6/18

In the morning, Chou again went into Mr. Ushimaru’s classroom and reminded him to teach all lessons. It made him cross the whole day. She got to see it during class; his voice was stern and his gaze was hard, searching for any signs of who might be calling him out. Or who might be trouble. Since she wanted to get recognition for her scores, Chou did her best to pay attention. The rain was pouring down the windows in sheets and he was giving a talk on politics that Yoshida was better at teaching. Her eyes started to stray out the window as she considered her work as Joker. Oyamada would need to be taken care of today. Perhaps he would be tough. But Kawakami wasn’t in today, that was strange.

“Seong-Min Choi!” Ushimaru’s voice thundered, drawing Chou’s attention back to the teacher (and raising the hairs on her neck in case he might get after her for getting distracted too).

“Huh?” Seong sounded dazed.

“Don’t fall asleep in my class!” Ushimaru said. Third Eye was quick to warn her: he was going to throw his chalk again, at Seong and he would hit. But it would have to fly right by her since he was pacing around today… once he threw, Chou reached up and snatched the chalk out of the air. It stung something nasty.

But it was worth it for the gasps of amazement and surprise from her classmates. “Wow, she’s like a ninja,” a girl said, trying to be quiet.

“Nice catch,” Morgana said from her desk.

“What was that for, Chou Amamiya?” Ushimaru asked sternly.

“Sorry sir,” she said. “But it’s my opinion that throwing things at people is rude.”

“So is sleeping in class,” Ushimaru said, coming over to her desk.

“I’m not arguing that,” she said, handing it back. And then there was a thud behind her; Seong had fainted.

“Someone go fetch the nurse,” Ushimaru said, heading back to the front of the classroom among the bubble of noise bursting out. “And be quiet! We’re still in class.”

Chou shook her hand some. “That hurt, but it might’ve hurt him more,” she said quietly to Morgana.

“Right, I hope he’ll be okay,” Morgana said.

“And someone stop meowing like a cat!” Ushimaru said, looking around and trying to figure that out. All he got was confusion and annoyance out of them. “It keeps happening, in this classroom!”

“Oops,” Morgana said, pulling her paws back from stretching out of her hiding hole.

While she had plans with the Metaverse after school, Chou decided to peek in the nurse’s office to see how Seong was doing. Social studies had been the second to last class today, after all. The nurse let her in, bur warned her that Seong already had a visitor. Well, the Metaverse didn’t take time… she sat down to wait quietly to see him, which let her overhear a middle-aged woman speaking. “You really shouldn’t act out like this, dear. You disrupted a class and made me cancel an appointment, but then claim you’re just tired? You’re young, you can handle this. Don’t be doing some attention-grabbing scheme again.”

“What a jerk,” Morgana muttered from the bag.

Chou nodded in agreement, but then heard Seong say, “Yes, Mrs. Takese,” in a defeated voice.

Takese? There was a good chance of a coincidence here, but things were starting to click. Chou pulled out her phone as Mrs. Takese continued on in a falsely sweet voice. “You need to be paying your rent to us soon, to prove your responsibility. Now you ought to prove your inner will by getting back home on your own. I have confidence that you can accomplish that much.”

Then she came out from behind a partition. Chou was ready with her phone’s camera to snap a couple pictures before Mrs. Takese left the room. While they weren’t the best, they should be recognizable to someone who knew this woman. Morgana popped her head out of the bag to watch. “She smells rotten, of distortion. I’m sure she has a nasty Shadow to her.”

“We might be able to do something soon, if we can find Ms. Kawakami,” Chou said quietly. “But first, let’s talk to him.” She picked her bag up once Morgana had dropped back down, then went to the partition. “Hey Seong, you mind me coming in?”

“No, it’s fine,” he said. While he was sitting up there, he looked pale and tired. “I wasn’t expecting any visitors.”

“I wanted to check on you,” she said. “How’re you feeling?”

“Just tired, mostly,” he said, looking down in shame. “I’ve been on night shifts lately… I get enough sleep most nights, but not this week. I still don’t want to give up on school, but it’s getting tough to juggle everything.”

“Why not give up one of your jobs?” Chou asked, sitting down near him. “You’ve got at least two that I’ve seen you at.”

“Um, I’ve had six this year,” Seong said. “Not all at once! I do have three of them now, all part-time. I guess I could give up one, but it’d still be hard to figure it all out. I’ve got a rent to pay.”

“You have your own apartment?” she asked, acting clueless. “Then who was that woman who was just in here?”

“Uh…” he gripped his arm, taking a moment to work up his courage. “That was… Mrs. Takese, my foster parent. I live with them right now.”

“You don’t pay rent to a foster parent,” she said.

Seong shook his head. “Try convincing them of that. They decide on something and will not budge for anything. And, well, I can’t fight against them. They’d report me to the police and get me arrested.”

“That would be nasty,” she said.

“Uh, yeah, you would know,” he said, rubbing his head.

Chou nodded, keeping calm. “But even if you are saving up for college, it seems ridiculous that you’d have a rent that drives you into so many jobs.”

“I suppose it would sound like that,” Seong said. “Mr. Takese talks like what I’m doing is expected out of everyone, unless you’re absurdly lucky. My parents would’ve argued it, but…”

“What would they have thought of this?” she asked. “Of you working so hard that you faint in class trying to keep up?”

He finally looked up at her for asking that, a bit surprised, but a light was going off in his mind. “Huh? Oh, well, they’d probably be pissed off at the Takeses for pressuring me this much. My dad moved in from another country because he felt it was a better life for him; he’d really be mad about me being like this.”

“So you gonna stay like that?”

“I shouldn’t.” He chuckled at himself, also in relief. “Yeah, I shouldn’t be taking this. I could report them. Not sure what to report them on, but I don’t like this. I want to stick with school and the Takeses keep trying to convince me to quit. But that’s not right! My parents and I worked hard to get me here, but not this hard.”

Chou smiled at him. “Right. But what are you going to do now? You say you’re just tired, but you don’t look like you could go far from the school.”

“I was dreading the train stations,” Seong said. “I wonder if there’s some way for me to get into a school dorm? If I can get in one tonight, I know when they’re usually out so I can get my stuff tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t know, but I know someone who might,” Chou said, taking her phone to text Makoto. ‘Hey, a classmate wants to know if there’s an open dorm room and if he could move in today.’

Seong rubbed his forehead. “I wouldn’t know how to check on that on such short notice myself.”

“Well you could quit the beef bowl shop since it’s bad,” Chou said. “And whatever other job would make a student work night shifts.”

Brightening at that, he said, “Oh yeah, I could do that if I was just taking care of myself. I’m sure the dorms would have a cost, but I think I can handle it on just one part-time job. While I’d have to be frugal, this past year has taught me to be that. That’d make things so much better.”

Makoto replied then. ‘That’s an odd request, but I’m sure it could be handled. Where are you both?’

‘The nurse’s office, still in school.’

‘Let me get someone and we should be over soon.’

“This could happen,” Chou said, setting her phone in her bag.

“I hope so,” Seong said. “Hey, uh, my memory’s kind of fuzzy around when I fainted, but I thought I saw you catch one of Ushimaru’s infamous chalk throws.”

Chou nodded. “He was throwing one at you for falling asleep in class, but I got it this time.”

“That’s awesome, thanks,” he said with a smile. “But, uh, I didn’t get any notes for his class, or the last one today.”

“Let me get mine and I can fill you in,” she said, getting her notebook.

A few minutes later, Makoto came in with the school counselor Maki. “There is an open room in a nearby dorm,” Makoto said, “so we could see about a new move in.”

Maki nodded and took another chair nearby. “Yes, but what’s going on here?”

“Um, I fainted in class today,” Seong said, putting his hand to his chest. “I haven’t seen a doctor in a while, but it’s clearly because my foster parents have pushed me into taking three part-time jobs at once. I’ve had some late shifts this week. But I don’t want to leave Shujin! I would rather leave them and figure out a way to report them to someone who can do something about it.”

“Oh dear, this isn’t good,” Maki said. “I know who could help you out legally. For now, we’ll move you into the dorm today. There is a dorm fee, which includes a meal card for the cafeteria and a few select restaurants in the area. Given the situation, we’ll see about getting you a waiver for a month at least.”

“Good, I can work with that,” Seong said.

“I’ll leave you to that then,” Chou said. “Don’t push yourself too much the next few days.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “Thanks, Chou.”

“Let me know if there’s anything more I can help with too,” Makoto said, then left with her. “Hey, are you interested in helping out with the student council? You’re certainly doing good work for your classmates.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” Chou asked.

“For elected positions,” she admitted. “But we could always use some volunteers. And we are going to need several from the second years in the future.” Makoto frowned at that.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Something that I’m working on, and I do need to catch someone soon on it,” she said. “Sorry, I can’t hang out today. But come Monday, there’s a high chance there will be a meeting of just the second years. It could be tough, but I’m going to handle it.”

“Sure, and send me a message if you do need help,” Chou said. “My schedule is chaotic, but I’ll make time.”

“All right, see you later then.” She headed out.

But Chou stuck around to find the nurse again. “Excuse me, but do you know why Ms. Kawakami wasn’t around today? I’m in her homeroom.”

The nurse nodded. “Yes, she’s in the hospital. She collapsed too, early this morning while doing some work here.”

Has she used make-up last night to not appear as tired as she was? “I see. Do you know which hospital? I’d like to visit her.”

“Sure, it’s in this neighborhood.” The nurse then gave her directions from leaving the school.

Chou headed over. Thankfully, the staff in the main lobby agreed to let her visit on hearing that she was a student. She dropped by a gift shop to see if there was anything Sadayo might feel cheered up by. They had some flower arrangements, but knowing what she did about their meanings, there didn’t seem to be an appropriate arrangement for get well from a student. Instead, she picked up a bag of colorful candies and headed up to Sadayo’s room.

Sadayo had more color to her than Seong did, but she looked weaker and just as tired. There was an IV in the room, but it seemed like she’d been detached from it already. From the messy state of her hair, she hadn’t expected any visitors. “Oh, Chou,” she said. “How’d you find me here?”

“I asked the school nurse since you weren’t around,” she said, offering the candies. “Here, you don’t deserve to be pushed like this.”

“Th-thanks,” she said, taking it. “I’ll be okay; their treatment here is really good. I thought I could take some more shifts last night because of the upped payment… but it was all bad jobs after I saw you. But I need to do this.”

Chou went over to her side to quietly say, “I’m sorry, but the situation is changed and I need their names.”

“Huh?” She looked alarmed. “But I don’t want them to find out about my involvement…”

“They shouldn’t,” she said, then took out her phone to bring up the pictures from the nurse’s office. “This her?”

After a moment, her eyes went wide. “Y-yes, that’s Mrs. Takese. What’s going on?”

“Seong-Min fainted today during Ushimaru’s class,” Chou explained. “Presumably of exhaustion. The Takeses are his foster parents.”

“They are?” Her shock shifted over to anger; she gripped the candy bag and made it crinkle.

She nodded. “I overheard them talking. Mrs. Takese speaks like she’s sweet and cute, but she reminded him that he owed them rent and he should prove his strength by walking back home himself. While he claimed he was just lacking sleep and worn out, he didn’t look like he could walk far on his own. I talked with him for a bit and he explained that he’s working three part-time jobs to cover their rent demands, or they’ll report him to the police on false charges.”

“That sounds just like Taiki,” Sadayo said. “But what’s going to happen to Seong?”

“I convinced him to leave them for a school dorm room,” Chou said. “The school counselor Maki helped out. When I left, she was going to set him up with the room and some legal help. But given that they adopted another boy to use just like their nephew, and you, I’m not agreeing with leaving them alone now.”

Not giving it any more thought, she nodded. “I agree. I didn’t realize that about Seong, but I should have noticed. It is just like Taiki all over again, but I was too distracted to realize it. But it is their fault, isn’t it? They got us trapped when we were vulnerable… they’re Toshio Takese and Hiromi Takese.”

Chou put in the names, checked on their spelling, then searched for them. No Palaces, which felt odd. But that would be quicker. “Got a hit on both. I’ll take care of this today; it’ll take at least a night for the realization to hit them, and I’ll let you know if there’s a complication. Just focus on taking care of yourself for today and tomorrow.”

“Sure enough,” Sadayo said. “But sheesh, I slept most of today and if I relax this evening, I’ll probably sleep all night too. It’ll be more sleep than I’ve gotten in a long time.”

“That’s good, but you can do better,” Chou said, making her smile. “We’re going to go prepare, so see you Monday.”

“You take good care of yourself too,” she said.

On their way out of the hospital, Morgana said, “I know Mrs. Takese is going to have a strong Shadow; Oyamada will too. We’re in for a couple of rough fights today.”

Chou nodded and quietly replied, “I think I’m going to grab some snacks, make sure we have medicine, then head in. Once we’re done, we’ll take things easy.”

“Hmm, since these are going to be tough battles, want to call in some guests?”

“That could help.” Seong had a Persona, so him… did Tae have a Persona? She was at least familiar with them, but Chou couldn’t recall if she’d noticed that with her or not. Then Yuuki because Beholder was very useful in tough battles. Then who else? Perhaps scanning the Shadows with Beholder would indicate who’d be good to call on.


	53. Fairies Fight Unfairly

6/18

In Mementos, Joker and Ace teleported down to the third station they’d come across. It was raining again. Along with the strong Shadow Selves they were searching for, the regular Shadows might be more active too. Ace sniffed around, then said, “One target is two levels above us, and two targets are deep below. We’ve made longer treks, but this deep down with the rainy season, we’re in for a rough time.”

“We were sure of that coming down here,” Joker said. “But both of these need to be taken care of.”

“Yes, let’s do it,” Ace said.

They moved through carefully, pausing at corners and waiting at points for Shadows to move out of the way. They moved through quickly, using Ace’s motorcycle transformation to zip down straightaways and outrun the Shadows. On finding the twisted rails to Oyamada’s offshoot, they fought off a Shadow nearby to get a clear space. Joker then summoned Yuuki while Ace went to keep watch on the tunnels nearby. “Ah, you need my help again?” he asked proudly.

“So we and anyone else we call don’t die today,” Joker said, hoping that got him to cut that pride back some. “Including you. Our first target is through there. Can you scan them from here?”

“I should be able to,” Yuuki said, bringing out his laptop along with Beholder. The Persona sent a few small eyes through the portal to grab the information they needed. When they came back, it didn’t take long to get an analysis. “This Shadow isn’t weak to anything and isn’t strong against anything; it favors magic. Beholder recalls that this one isn’t as strong as Kyoko’s Shadow, but it’ll still be tough.”

“All right,” Joker said, taking out her phone. Not weak to anything in particular… and Tae couldn’t be summoned. Instead, she called on Makoto and Haru to see how they could do. “Hello, I am Joker of the Phantom Thieves,” she said to them. “And I’d like your help.”

“Huh?” both girls said, then glanced at each other. Makoto turned back to her first. “What do you mean?”

She pointed through the portal. “Through there is a doctor who treats his job like it’s an assembly line, giving bare minimum care to his patients. But that’s the least of his sins. He’s endangered the life of a child by pushing an experimental medication on her without adequate testing, then got another doctor fired and labeled as the Plague so that he wasn’t blamed for it. Since then, he’s been harassing this other doctor, even claiming that the girl was dead to end her ambitions to complete this new medicine.”

“That is rotten,” Haru said. “But why us? What can we do?”

“Your Personas will let you know,” Joker said.

“But how did you know we had Personas?” Makoto asked. “We called on them ourselves.”

“In the real world, I can tell who has a Persona and who doesn’t,” Joker said. “You both seemed promising. This is a dream world; you won’t remember it exactly and you cannot be held accountable for what happens. Will you help me punish this sinner?”

“Sure, I’d like to see justice done,” Haru said, clenching a fist and smiling. On hearing it was a dream, she seemed to take it like an adventure.

“I’d like to see things for myself, so all right,” Makoto said. She was a risk because she might talk with her sister about this. But it should be fine.

“I’ve got their abilities here,” Yuuki said, showing what was on his screen. On a quickly look, Makoto had nuclear spells and physical abilities, while Haru had psychic spells and gun-based abilities.

“Good,” Joker said as Ace came back over. “Ace and I will do any talking that’s necessary; let’s go in.”

There was a standard offshoot past the portal; the black flames around Shadow Oyamada had a tinge of red to them. “Did you call me because you can’t get an appointment?” he said. “Too bad, I don’t have time for trash like you.”

“You don’t have a choice in this,” Ace said. “You’re a cruel man and a poor doctor, only taking patients to get paid.”

“So what?” Oyamada said. “Health care is a business like any other. And a lot of people think they’re worse off than they really are, doing things like mistaking heartburn for a heart attack.”

“You nearly killed a child because you were trying to claim fame for a medicine you had nothing to do with,” Joker said.”

“What do you know about that?!” he snapped, not letting her continue. “I deserve fame, not Takemi! I am recognized as a great doctor and I’ll make you acknowledge it!” He then transformed into a baboon dressed like an Egyptian god. Thoth shook his book at them. “You’re clearly trash, relying on women like them. You will suffer for threatening me!”

“Everyone says that,” Joker said, casting Rakukaga to give them some safety. “Show me what you’ve got!”

Makoto suddenly had spiked gloves, with which she pounded the ground to blast Thoth like she’d punched him. As she did that, Haru brought out a large gun… was that really a grenade launcher? Joker only recognized it due to Gun About. Haru seemed to be focusing, so Joker protected her and then switched to Matador. After Makoto tried out Freila to see what it would do, Haru improbably fired her launcher three times in quick succession, knocking Thoth right over. He flipped back upright too quickly to take advantage of it, though.

Tapping his book, Thoth then cast Mafrelia at them. Johanna protected Makoto from that, as did the armor Joker and Ace had. But Haru was knocked to the ground. Thoth pointed at her and tapped his book again. Joker got in the way and got hit by beetles with a noxious smell. Immediately, her body felt weak and her mind felt dazed. It was like the medicine she was taking in the trials, but much worse than what Takemi was giving her. But in this case, Ace healed up the whole group, Makoto added a different healing spell to Joker, and Haru got up behind her. The weak feeling faded and Joker was able to get back to attacking.

A few more attacks knocked Thoth back into smoke. Oyamada’s Shadow reappeared, on his knees and out of breath. “Wh-what are you picking on me for? I’m not trash… you’re trash, everyone else is trash…”

“Here’s why,” Joker said, pointing at him and making a connection with her power.

Oyamada greatly admired sociopathic criminals; he wanted to match their drive and deviousness. But he couldn’t keep his cool when in trouble or faced with a challenge. As a result, he panicked and threw the blame on whoever was nearest. He had ruined the careers of peers all throughout his education. Tae was just his first victim as a professional. He was jealous, lazy, and vindictive. Once he got blame to stick, he would make sure his victim got crushed. Oyamada believed that would assure him victory in life and did his best not to care about those he hurt.

Facing his sins, Oyamada was driven to tears. “I, I… I’m really a loser, huh? I wanted to be a doctor for the respect, but it was so much work. I found other ways to get ahead, but Takemi wasn’t that way. She’s honestly a genius with the way she grasps chemistry and makes her own medicines from scratch. It was clear that she was going to get world-wide renown with that trial, so I thought it was a genuinely clever move to snatch the fame from under her nose. It worked before, I ruined many students around me. But she was right, it wasn’t ready… and, I was really making my patients worse out of my laziness and pride. They couldn’t afford to accuse me.”

“Then you need to confess to your sins now,” Joker said. “And clear the names of those you ruined.”

“I’ll do my best to remember,” he said as he faded away. He left a pouch behind.

“That’s disgusting,” Makoto said. “Putting patients and peers at risk just to make yourself look good.”

“I agree, you’re doing good work,” Haru said.

“Thanks, but I’m going to send you back to your dreams now,” Joker said. “Keep strong against your own adversities.” Once they were gone, she turned to Yuuki. “I’m going to send you away for now, but there’s another battle ahead that could be even tougher. I’ll meet you there.”

“I could come with you and help with the battles in between,” Yuuki said. “Um, there are those, right? Like in a game?”

“Sorry, this is better,” she said, sending him away. “I doubt he can keep up with a motorcycle and we don’t want him getting knocked out before we get to the Takeses.”

“He might be handy as we could run into Shadows we don’t know in the next area,” Ace said, going over to check out the pouch. “Then again, it would be harder to move ahead with a dreamer along and he’s more important for these powerful Shadows. And here, we’ve got,” she opened up the pouch, then stared. “Whoa!”

“What is it?” Joker asked, coming over.

“That’s a lot of money,” she said, passing the pouch over. “At least, it looks that way. Isn’t it?”

Flipping through the bills inside, she noted that they were all high dominations. “Yes… a hundred thousand yen, it seems. This is what the Takeses were demanding out of Sadayo, but a person could live off this sum of money for a while if they were careful about it.”

“So money is a Treasure that distorted Oyamada? But how would he have this much? Is he a thief too?”

“No, doctors earn a lot of money,” Joker said, zipping up the pouch to put away. “He was after that along with the great respect most doctors get, but didn’t want to accept the great amount of study and work that goes along with the job.”

“And he thought he could supplant Tae,” Ace said disdainfully. “Well, that should be corrected soon.”

After some more careful maneuvering, they got back to the station level to head on down. The next level was darker, with only blue lights illuminating it. It made the whole area look cold, although it was damp and only a little cool. As for the Shadows, a lot of them appeared green to orange to Third Eye, indicating that they were stronger than Joker, but not by a lot. One of the green ones manifested as a Matador, although hers proved stronger. Others were various oni, while one that was nearly red turned out to be a Sui-ki with an elegant woman who kept healing him.

They came upon a rest area seven levels past the station. “This could be a good place to train ourselves,” Ace said. “We could take some fights just above and below, then come back here to rest.”

“Sure, and make sure we’re fully prepared for the Palace,” Joker said. “But where’s our targets for today?”

She paused, then said, “Three levels below here. Do we want to train or head straight there?”

“We should head for the Takeses; don’t want to wear ourselves out before doing that.”

When they got to the right level, there were three Shadows near a crossroad past the entrance. There was something strange about them: they all had blue auras. Because of that, they agreed to fight anyhow to clear the way. The Shadows turned into Pixies, High Pixies, Goblins, even a Jack Frost and the healer Valerie who came in as backup. Joker made a mental note to negotiate with a Valerie once she had a green aura. Ace was a good healer too, but Valerie would surely have a great deal of magical power.

They cleared the area around the portal again before Joker called Yuuki back. “This is where the our other targets for today are hiding,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll check on them,” he said, sending the mini eyes inside. “Hey, so who are you? We could talk outside of these dream places if I knew how to find you.”

“I’m Joker, and not a chance,” she said.

“What?” he asked, disappointed.

“Nothing wrong with you,” she said. “It’s just safer all around. Or do you want the police hounding you too?”

“Well they aren’t doing anything, so you guys came in to serve justice,” Yuuki said.

“I serve justice when it’s convenient to do so,” Joker said. “And when the police are motivated, by money or by pride, they will be right on the case.”

“But you’re heroes, right?” he asked.

“We’re thieves who happen to steal from sinners,” she said.

“But you’re still heroes, and I want to help more.” The mini-eyes came back then, letting him analyze the data. “Hmm… whoa, they’re each stronger than that doctor! The woman is magic-focused, weak to fire, strong to status attacks, and will absorb ice, while the man is physical focused, weak to, um, psychic and strong against nuclear. That’s weird.”

“That’s normal,” Joker said, thinking it over. While she didn’t know what he could do, she wanted to call Seong in since he was involved and she couldn’t call for Sadayo. Ann would be a good choice, but Haru was her friend who was psychic focused. Seong, Ann, and… she settled on Yusuke as the fifth person fighting. “I’ll need to know this team’s abilities too.”

“Are you going to bring Niijima-san back in?” he asked. “I’m sure somebody was using fire before.”

“The ones I chose are coming,” Joker said.

“Oh… I could advise you better if I had more experience doing this. And I can find objects to manipulate, I mean, if there’s any objects to use. I’ve done it before.”

“Still not worth getting you arrested for conspiring with us,” she said.

“I, I guess not,” he said, looking at his computer as the three other dreamers arrived. “Okay, here’s their abilities.”

Seong’s Persona was called The Sweeper, was of The Lovers arcana, knew Maragi which wasn’t as good as Ann’s fire spells… but two of his spells jumped right out at her: Masukukaga and Matarukaga. Maragi was also his only offensive spell, as the rest were healing for the group. This could even things out. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “We’re here to punish the sinners Toshio Takese and Hiromi Takese.”

“The Takeses?” Seong asked, surprised.

Joker nodded. “They’ve blackmailed you for money, but you’re not their first victim. They took in their nephew after his parents died and forced him to work constantly to take the money he earned. He eventually got hit by a car when he was exhausted. Then they decided to blackmail someone who tried to help him to get more money off of her, also before they took you in.”

“That is what happened with me, except I’m not dead yet,” Seong said. “There have been a few close calls when I was tired.”

“That’s awful,” Ann said. “They deserve to be punished.”

“Yes, we’re with you,” Yusuke said.

Joker nodded. “This is going to be a tough fight, but I believe we can do this. Ace, I trust your judgment. Ann, focus on using your fire spells. Yusuke, avoid your ice spells, attack them in other ways. And Seong-Min, prioritize your buff spells. Your fire could help out, but make sure the buffs stick first.”

“All right,” Seong said, as the other two nodded to agree.

“Ace and I will handle any talking, so let’s go,” Joker said.

While she had expected this to be a Palace bud, the room past the portal was strangely normal for Mementos. The Takeses were quietly talking with each other, their flames intertwined. Mr. Takese noticed them first. “Hey, did you bring money?” he demanded. “You’re going to need it for threatening us like this!”

“You want money, you work for it,” Joker said. “We’re here to make you face your sins.”

“Hmph, nonsense,” Mr. Takese said, crossing his arms over his chest. “We deserve a good lifestyle, moreso than the sniveling idiots around us. We deserve this new car! And we won’t settle for anything but the best.”

“Of course dear, we’re good people,” Mrs. Takese said. “We’ve never harmed a soul. But in order to make others see how good and worthy you are, you need a lot of money, especially for a woman. We are worthy, so you should pay us before we make you regret it.”

“No way, you’ve done more harm than good,” Seong said, not able to hold back. He brought out a hefty staff that looked like it was better for fighting with than casting.

“Taiki?!” both of them exclaimed, confusing Seong. “No, you were a pampered boy and deserved a taste of the rough life!” They transformed into a beautiful couple, each with fairy wings. Oberon lifted his sword and seemed to be focusing his energy while Titania cast a magic repelling shield over him.

Calling on Suzaku, Joker cast Agilao at Oberon to take care of that shield without getting hurt. Yusuke darted over to fight Oberon sword to sword; that should keep him distracted. Titania then raised a hand, icy sparkles gathering. But Seong had already used Masukukaga, allowing Joker and Ann to avoid the icy spikes that began flying. Once she felt safe, Ann cast Maragilao to knock Titania over and do some good damage to Oberon. Joker shifted Personas so she could follow up with Frelia to give them some free attack time on the two Shadows.

But the two got back in the air; Titania even healed them both while Oberon slashed at all of them. Oberon smirked at them. “Hmph, you’re rude and unruly on top of being thieves. I will expose you and claim the fame of stopping you from your vain exploits! Lawyers! Sue them!”

A mass of groans surrounded them as two dozen zombified lawyers burst out of the ground. They all wore worn business suits and carried black briefcases. “Sue sue sue!” the lawyers chanted.

Titania giggled. “You can’t escape now, unless you want to give us a hefty payment to forget this all. We can keep a secret, for a price.” She waved her hand in encouragement.

While this all seemed comical to her, Ann, Yusuke, and especially Seong were intimidated by the threat. Hearing ‘for a price’ gave Joker an idea. “How do you plan on paying the lawyers?” she asked loudly.

The zombie lawyers all went quiet on hearing the question, staring at the couple. “Fee?” one of them moaned.

“You will be paid when you win in court!” Oberon declared, keeping a proud poise.

“That’s no good when you won’t figure out who we are,” Joker said, mimicking him to sound like an authority. This was Mementos, so the individual Shadows weren’t in control. “I brought back Taiki; you can’t sue him, or the others, or me. There is no chance of winning in court.”

Oberon glared down at her. Feeling protected by the mask, Joker matched his gaze and stayed calm. The others around them waited to see what would happen. Then one of the zombie lawyers asked, “Fee?” That caused the rest of them to echo about fees.

“You will be paid when you win, you worms!” Oberon snapped.

“Do they have the jobs to hire a bunch of lawyers?” Joker asked Seong.

“No, they don’t,” he answered. “He has a low salary job and she doesn’t work at all.”

“No fee!” the zombie lawyers called, then retreated back to the ground.

“Then you’re all bark and no bite,” Joker said.

“Wh-what?” Oberon stammered. “Never! We alone will make you suffer!” He thrust his sword in the air rapidly and threw their guests into a panic. Ace was able to calm them down with Me Patra so they could continue fighting.

After Titania healed herself and Oberon again, Joker pulled out an Attack Mirror and used it. “Focus on her for now,” she told the others. If she could stop Titania otherwise, it might be useful to focus on Oberon. It worked in that she and Ann could keep knocking Titania over for Yusuke to take advantage of. She tried to flee from them, but flew by Seong who knocked her aside with his staff.

“Why have you got to be so rough on a lady?” Titania asked, right before she cast Mabufula at them. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you all are mistaken. In your lust for fame, you’ve falsely accused us innocent people who are just looking to get by in the world. Aren’t you ashamed of your foolishness?”

“Aren’t you?” Joker echoed. “You’re thieves just the same.”

“No, we’re good citizens who’ve never harmed a soul,” she insisted.

“You threaten others into giving you money, just the same as a mugger,” Joker said. “You have an ugly soul.”

“Please, that doesn’t matter at all,” Titania said. “Fools and trash say that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but in truth it’s what’s outside that counts. Just look upon me; my beauty seems effortless, no? But it takes a lot of work and money to maintain this standard. So you should really give us money or else you’re holding all of us back.”

“You are talking in such knots that you’re not making any sense,” Ace said.

“She’s a fool, so her hurtful words don’t matter,” Joker said.

“I am wise and I am a beauty!” Titania snapped, casting her Mabufula again. Ace had to heal up Ann quickly; Seong got Masukukaga back up while Joker used Agilao against Titania.

“Ugh, how dare you fools assault my wife!” Oberon said, flying over to lunge at Joker. The Attack Mirror bounced the attack back at him.

Meanwhile, Yusuke slashed at Titania and defeated her. Mrs. Takese reappeared, surrounded in black flames. W-will you all stop p-picking on me?” she cried. “I’ve done nothing wrong, honest!”

Joker could feel the connection starting to form. “You’ve done many things wrong,” she said, pointing to her.

“Sorry guys!” Ace called, snapping something on the floor that made a thick cloud of smoke fill the room.

Despite that, she could feel where Mrs. Takese was. Joker connected her power to her. Hiromi knew how poisonous her words were, but saw it as revenge against the world for treating her the same way. Whenever she saw beautiful and successful people around her, she grew jealous and wanted them to suffer. When she made them suffer, she felt vindicated. It was even better when they paid her for their suffering so that she could live the life she saw as ideal. Taiki was actually her third indirect death from bullying; that made her feel powerful and she was eager to see Seong and Sadayo fall victim too.

But when she experienced their suffering, she wailed and crumpled into a ball. “I’m not bad!” she insisted. “Everyone else is worse and deserves to suffer! You just want to see me suffer, huh?”

“I want you to stop making others suffer and die,” Joker said. “You need to give back what you’ve taken.”

“B-but I can’t, or else I’ll be poor and miserable… like those I bully…”

“They deserve it!” Oberon called through the smoke, trying to find her. “Don’t give in!”

But she’d already felt the weight of her sins. “I need the money for all the treatments, make-up, and workouts to be beautiful, or else people will see my age and think of me as a loser. But I am a loser because of how I trick others into feeling miserable and worthless. I hate that kind of passive aggressiveness turned on me, but it’s so useful against others. I’m terrible; I have to make up for it or else this will drive me insane with guilt.”

“Then atone and improve,” Joker said.

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“Stop this!” Oberon said, slicing through the smoke and whipping up a breeze to clear the air. On seeing that Mrs. Takese wasn’t around, either as herself or Titania, he glared at Joker. “How dare you blackmail her like that! You’re a cruel pitiless person!”

“She couldn’t face her sins with grace,” Joker said.

“Could you face your sins?” he argued.

She nodded. “Yes, I’ve done so without wailing. Now can you face your sins with grace?”

“Of course I can,” he said. “I am no sinner. I’m simply striving for the life that my wife and I deserve.”

“Then prove your word,” Joker said, pointing at him. Oberon nodded, summoning the power again to connect to him.

Toshio was similar to his wife, a bundle of jealousy and greed that drove him to hate those who were successful. He had an older brother who he despised for being a perfect student, son, and even a CEO, someone Toshio could never match. When his brother and sister-in-law had died, he felt like his prayers had been answered. Hiromi had shown him the fun in ruining others; it made him feel like a powerful man, but he felt cursed with a bad job. They wanted far more money than they could earn just to feel secure.

He grunted in trying to bear his sins, but then his form as Oberon burst into glass shards and vanished after hitting the ground. Mr. Takese screamed and pulled at his hair. “No, these aren’t my sins,” he claimed. “You… you must be showing me things of a wicked person.”

“You’re the wicked person, ruining others through empty threats,” Ace said.

“W-well I couldn’t ever keep up,” he said. “Always an average piece of trash in the eyes of everyone else. Can I really be blamed for doing what I could to even the odds?” Before they could answer (Joker only shook her head), Mr. Takese went on with, “Wait, this was me, and I didn’t have to do this. I was always doomed to be a loser, but seems like much of it was my own doing. I would despise someone who did what I did. But if these nightmares of my sins linger… will they go away if we give back what we took?”

“You can’t give back the lives you took,” Joker said. “But to atone, you need to give back what you can, and be better than before.”

“I’ll do what I can, but it may not be enough,” Mr. Takese said before vanishing.

“So they’re going to stop blackmailing me?” Seong asked.

“They should,” Joker said. “When you have this dream, they will be dreaming of the same.”

“Thank you, that makes things a lot better,” he said, relaxing and relieved.

“Then I’ll send you all back to your own dreams,” Joker said, taking her phone to send all the dreamers back.

“Good luck, Joker!” Ann called before the four left.

“Good job tricking him,” Ace said, coming to her side with a smile. “I’m sure that made the fight easier.”

“Thanks for the smoke screen,” Joker said. “I wouldn’t have been able to avoid Oberon attacking me while I was working on Mrs. Takese.”

She nodded. “It’s usually for escaping, but I had a gut feeling it’d be useful right then. I feel like I could use a break, but I could still keep going. So what do you say? Use a Goho-M to take a break, then get back to that last rest station to train?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Justine was outside the door to the Velvet Room today. “Oh, you are in here,” she said. “We were discussing if you were or weren’t; the Master isn’t in, but I can bring you in if you wish.”

“We had a couple of requests we wanted to take care of quickly,” Joker said. “Say, do you think I can execute for Flauros now?”

“Hmm…” Justine studied her for a moment, flipped through her clipboard’s papers, then looked back at her. “No. Almost, but no. I can sense now where you’ve been in this dungeon. When the Shadows with a red aura drop down to yellow, then you’ll be able to control Flauros.”

“When the red aura Shadows turn yellow, huh?” Joker said, partly so her partner heard it.

“The one we found was with that Valerie Shadow,” Ace said. “That shouldn’t be hard.”

“Alright, then I’ll come in when that’s ready,” Joker said.

“That should be prudent,” Justine said.

“Oh wait, you’re talking with one of those Velvet Room people, right?” Ace asked.

“Wardens,” Justine corrected despite being unheard.

“Yup, one of the wardens,” Joker said.

“Would you ask her about that stationary set I found?” Ace asked. “I dunno, it’s just a feeling.”

“Might as well,” Joker said, bringing the box with the pen and blank cards out. “What do you know about this, Justine?”

Briefly, she looked curious on seeing the box. Joker handed it to her, letting her open it up to examine the things inside. Justine took the pen out and seemed startled at it. “This is…”

“The box just vanished to me,” Ace said, twitching her whiskers and trying to locate Justine.

“It seems like it belongs to the Velvet Room, or an attendant there,” Justine said, twirling the pen in her fingers. “But I do not know who exactly this would belong to. ‘Who’ in general would be an artist of the paranormal, one who could turn these cards into Personas, equipment, items, or even demons. It might be possible to trace who the owner is?”

“What are you unsure of?” Joker asked.

“Well the Master would know,” she said. “But it is a trifle, not enough to bother him with. Caroline and I might be able to figure it out on our own time. Do you mind if we try?”

“Go ahead,” Joker said. “Hearing what those cards can do, it seems like it’s best in the hands of their real owner rather than just anyone.”

“Very well, we’ll look into this,” Justine said, putting the pen back in the box.

Now that they were looking for fights, their movement depended on finding Shadows that were on their own before attacking. Clusters of blue or green Shadows were okay, but anything stronger they didn’t want to give a chance to ambush. Ace could distract one or two with her slingshot. In battles, Joker tried out various spells and skills, seeing what they did and if there were things to take advantage of. One thing was that using a zio-type spell could end up with a Shadow paralyzed. But then the shock could jump to an attacker; that ended up with a sticky situation, but Ace got them out of it.

The green auras became blue, the orange and yellow ones dropped to green. Eventually, they ran into a Valerie with a Kin-ki that should have been red; it had been yellow. Just to be sure, they sought out other orange and yellow aura Shadows until the particular oni-Valerie duo showed up as complete yellow. It was a bit like a game, but the information was helpful.

Back at the entrance of Mementos, she went into the Velvet Room. Igor wasn’t in as they’d said, but that was fine. Chou executed a few weaker Personas to make room for the ones she needed for Flauros. Other than being a three Persona execution, it was like any other. Tarukaga was useful enough that she’d want it passed on even without the request. Justine nodded on seeing the result. “So you’ve fulfilled our request again.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Still on the easy side,” Caroline said. “But your cooperation is appreciated. So why this Persona?”

“Making sure I can do group executions?” Chou suggested, calling on Flauros to appear with her.

“Perhaps,” Justine said.

“Still easy,” Caroline said.

“Sometimes an easy step is needed to move up to a more difficult one,” Flauros said. “Plus she needed to grow stronger to get me to be interested in following her lead. And her strength will matter a great deal very soon. Either her strength or her cleverness, either of which I can help with.”

“That is a good point,” Justine said when Caroline shrugged.

Flauros was a strange creature, a red leopard man who had massive shoulder pads, like towers that went over his head. He put a hand to his chin. “Although you know, if you had summoned me as a demon rather than a Persona, I could be even more useful. In this form, once we leave this place, I won’t be able to advise you far beyond what you could figure out naturally. I can read the past and future in my natural form, along with other timelines as that matters with you.”

“No thanks,” Chou said, as useful as reading the future or other timelines might be. “But why are demons always after me? They never try to tempt my partner.”

“The cat?” Flauros asked. “She’d be no use to us. On the other hand, you’re a human and a Trickster. You can change the flow of the world. That’s something that demons are not satisfied with, as the current flow would be very bad for us. But that’s all I can tell you as a Persona, aside from how to summon me as a demon should you choose.” He then vanished into her mask.

“Now don’t be listening to that guy, Inmate,” Caroline said strictly. “Summoning a true demon would be a serious blow to your rehabilitation, so I forbid it!”

“Gotcha,” Chou said.

On the other hand, Justine was looking down in thought. “But he did tell us that the demons are currently unsatisfied with the direction that the world are going. That’s curious.”

“They’re not able to manifest on Earth, so of course they don’t like it,” Caroline said. “But we don’t want them running rampant and acting as tyrants over humanity. That’d make things way worse.”

“True,” Justine said, looking to her twin. “But I wonder if that’s all for what they don’t like.”

“They’re demons, so they’re massively distorted by their very nature,” Caroline argued. “So why wonder?”

“Well do you like where the world is going?” Chou asked. “I don’t. Although I wouldn’t like where the demons would take things, probably.”

“I don’t believe our opinions on that matter,” Justine said. “We don’t interact with the world at large.”

“But we are helping the Trickster,” Caroline said as if realizing something. “Should we care?”

“I don’t know,” Justine said, starting to act concerned. “Should we?”

“I think so,” Chou said.

“You’re the inmate here,” Caroline said. “But, maybe you have a point. We’ll think about it. So what Persona is next?”

Justine rifled through her papers to find the right one. “That would be… an Ame-no-Uzume with Dodge Psy. Aim for that next.”

“Alright.” It didn’t seem like she could fuse for Ame-no-Uzume with who she had, but Chou managed to fuse a Sui-ki with who she had left. She pulled out a few Personas for people she thought she’d be working with, then headed out of Mementos with Morgana.

On coming back out to Shibuya Station, she sent vague texts to Tae and Sadayo, letting them know that she had taken care of the targets. Then she went out to get what would seem like an early dinner to others, and figure out what they’d want to do for the rest of the day.


	54. Lazy Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a Christmas bonus update! Happy holidays :)

6/18

Chou: Hey Futaba? May I come see you?

Futaba: What for?

Chou: Just because.

Futaba: Just because? I dunno.

Chou: I’ve been stupidly busy lately.

Chou: I just wanna be lazy tonight and hang out, that’s all. :P

Futaba: I can understand that feeling.

Futaba: well not hanging out…

Chou: You ever just hang out with a friend your age?

Futaba: Not in person.

Chou: Why not try?

Futaba: Well if you did come over, there is something you could do that’d be easier than me doing it.

Chou: What’s that?

Futaba: I just don’t know.

Futaba: Sorry, I’m weird, I know.

Chou: I like weird people.

Futaba: Um, I’ll think about it.

Futaba: Maybe not tonight, but maybe I’ll invite you over sometime.

Chou: All right, just let me know when.

Chou: No school tomorrow because it’s Sunday, but otherwise you’ll have to wait for me to get out of classes.

Futaba: I’ll think about it.

Futaba: I could use the help, or I could do it on my own. It’s so simple it’s kinda silly, but I still have to be mentally prepared.

Chou: That’s fine.

Since Futaba wasn’t interested in hanging out and Chou didn’t feel like going far, she and Morgana went back to Leblanc. Chou brought out Kenzo’s old book to read through a few tales with Morgana. “What’s with this thing about tying someone’s hair to a horse and running them through a field to kill them?” Morgana asked at the end of one. “That’s grisly.”

“It’s really cruel,” Chou agreed. “Unfairly so for this tale; she was a witch, but she didn’t do anything that bad.”

“The hero was even killing, stealing, and lying to get his way,” Morgana said. “But the story treated him like he was right in everything he did.”

“Well that was how Kenzo thought of himself,” she said. “Then this does make sense as the thing that distorted him. The tales aren’t that pleasant, though.” She set it aside, then went to her computer. “Enough of that. For a change, I can show you the source for the cat transformation.”

“Oh yeah? Can you find it?”

“Let’s see… yes, here’s a clip from My Neighbor Totoro. It’s not the whole movie, I’d have to pay to see that.” She played the clip of the characters waiting at the bus station, which ended with the catbus arriving to take Totoro elsewhere.

Morgana tilted her head at it. “That was weird. I don’t think all those legs would help me; the tunnels of Mementos would be hard for that catbus to navigate.”

“Unless it could use the legs to rush along the rails,” Chou said. “Where there’s whole rails.”

“I still think my transformations are great,” she said. “Me as a motorcycle is cool! And if we have to transport somebody or something big, I can be a van instead.”

Chou hugged her. “You’re a great partner, Morgana.”

“I’m doing my best,” Morgana said, leaning into her. “So are there other things we can watch on your computer?”

“Sure, let’s see what we can find… how about that interview where I spoke with Akechi?”

“Yeah, that’d be good for me to see.”

The video was easily found on the station’s website, along with a new video that caught their interest: a statement from the hostess of ‘Today’s Hottest Meet and Greet’ about the Phantom Thieves and the Hashimotos. The description explained that it had been made in response to the station’s general statement about the arrests and deaths of their former leaders. Checking with that first, Chou found that it was trying to be very safe about the present and upbeat about the future. There was nothing specific in the statement, no mentions of drugs, blackmail, or sexual harassment. One early line stated that ‘Mistakes have been made and the tragic results have made it clear that we must build a better workplace environment and seek people with optimism and integrity to replace problematic members of our team.’ But a line later on said, ‘We should have a clear divide between personal and private lives, making sure neither affects the other.’

“Then are they going to improve?” Morgana asked on reading the official statement. “They’re saying yes, but also saying they’re not responsible for stuff. I think.”

“That’s what it sounds like to me too,” Chou said. “They’re attempting to save face despite having people from the station arrested. They want people to think that the whole group is not a problem, only certain individuals are. Which might be true, but they should have done something about their ‘problematic members’ before people died.”

“Right, not ignore the problems like Kenzo did,” she said. “But let’s see what this woman has to say.”

“Her statement might be better,” Chou said, selecting the video to play.

After a quick introduction, she began telling her story. “I have been working on Meet and Greet for five years, but it has not been a pleasant time. Originally, I applied for a newscaster position. The director for that show demanded sexual favors in order to accept me and when I refused, I was put on Meet and Greet instead. All this time, I’ve had to deal with unwanted attention and pressure from coworkers to go along with the system that Kyoko Hashimoto revealed in her recent video confession. It is a system that perpetrated itself and those of us who kept out as much as we could were at a severe disadvantage and treated poorly. But to keep our jobs, we had to at least not complain.

“Because of this, I am grateful to the Phantom Thieves for stepping in and calling attention to this ridiculous and cruel system. But those replacing the Hashimotos as the studio heads have decided to acknowledge these problems as minimally as possible, saying what would make them look best while doing little to solve the problem. I will not stand for this, not after enduring this harassment and abuse for so long. This culture of sexual dominance is not unique to our studio; it pervades the entertainment business in many forms. And this is an ideal time to change that, to avoid victims who become abusers like Mrs. Hashimoto, victims who perish like Toya-kun, and enablers like Mr. Hashimoto and others who would rather ignore it all on the excuse of it being personal business.

“When people suffer, it is callous to brush their statements off as personal business. Such callousness only encourages the abusers to continue their terrible actions. I wish to start a dialog about the truths of sexual harassment and abuse by bringing victims, counselors, and psychologists onto the show to speak about their experiences. However, the producers do not want to agree to this. They believe that calling attention to this will tarnish our image. If you are interested in such a talk series, please reply to this video saying so in order to convince them that it would be watched.

“For now, I’ll speak further on my own experiences.” She then went into detail about the kind of harassment she dealt with on a daily basis until the fall of the Hashimotos. One thing she mentioned was how she didn’t feel comfortable in the break room because certain men liked to stand in front of the door to trap her there to force her to speak with them.

“That’s awful that she’s had to deal with all that to do the job she likes,” Morgana said.

“But we helped her have the courage to speak up,” Chou said, hugging Morgana. “That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah! And we’ll do that for more people when we go after Kaneshiro.”

“For now, though, I want to do something fun,” Chou said, searching out a photo of Goro Akechi. Once she had it, she put it into a drawing program to put goofy clip art and drawings over his face.

Eventually, they’d have to confront him. For now, they could make fun of him.

* * *

6/19

For once, nobody had texted Chou asking her to do something on a Sunday. She got her usual chores done and considered maybe just doing nothing. She could get one of those aojiru drinks in Shibuya. Maybe look into Kaneshiro’s Palace? But it’d be nice to not do much, or at least something fun. What to do…

She got her laundry done and decided to text Shiho. She was waiting on Futaba to ask her over, same with Yusuke. While there were others who might hang out with her on a Sunday, she had a hunch about Shiho that she wanted to check out. Fortunately, she agreed and asked to meet up in Shibuya.

Shiho happened to find her waiting in line for the juice stand. “Good choice, I like this stand,” she said. “It’s great for an energy boost.”

Chou nodded. “Yeah, although I’ve mostly gone for their Sunday specials.”

Looking over at the sign, she asked, “The really expensive ones? I haven’t tried them, since I just go for the cheaper juices.”

“They’re pretty good and really healthy,” Chou said. “I had something I wanted to ask you about, once we get some juice; I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t have anything planned for today.” After a moment, she shrugged sheepishly. “The team broke up since our season is done and Ann is busy today. Usually it’s her who has nothing to do when I’m at practice.”

“At a loss for what to do on the other end of things?” Chou asked.

“Yeah, kind of,” she said.

Once they had their drinks, they sat on one of the benches to chat. “I had been training with Ryuji in running,” Chou explained. “But I didn’t want to join the track team; I just wanted to run decently and keep in good shape. We had talked about getting six minutes or less in a mile run, but now that he’s the the track team captain, he doesn’t have the time to practice with me. So you think you can help me run faster?”

Shiho gave it some thought. “Hmm, well he’d be better to learn running from. Not only does he know a lot about it, but our drills for running are strictly in sprints. You don’t have to go far on the court, but you do need to move quickly.”

“That makes sense,” Chou said.

Then she smiled. “But you know, it couldn’t hurt to do some cross-training while I’m not on a team. I know a good place to run too, if you don’t want him to find out how you’re improving. There’s a university where I attended a summer training session in middle school. While they don’t advertise it, they allow middle and high school students to come into their gym for the same fee as their own students.”

“That sounds good,” she said. “How’ve you been doing?”

“Alright, for the most part,” Shiho said. “Just not sure what to do with myself some days. It usually isn’t a problem, even after a volleyball season ends. The coaches want us to practice year round. But, now I don’t have a coach or a team.”

“Have you thought about maybe joining another team?” Chou asked.

“Yeah, but I can’t decide.” She shrugged again. “I have the most fun with volleyball. Track might not be bad, but I’m used to team spots. At Shujin, the other big sports for the girls are tennis and martial arts.”

“Martial arts?” Chou asked.

Shiho rubbed her chin. “I think they do mixed martial arts? The coaches know akido and yoga at least. Though, it might help.” She clenched a fist. “I know a couple other girls also study martial arts, and they say it helps with serving and keeping control. But I think I should be trying something else now; it feels weird not to be dedicated to something. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Why don’t you try a bunch of things and see what’s interesting?” Chou suggested.

“Maybe I should do that,” she said with a smile. “I suppose I couldn’t dedicate myself to something without knowing if I like it or not. But running is a good general sport to keep up.”

Once they were done with their drinks, they headed off to the university gym to run. The fee for this gym was higher than gym in Shibuya. In exchange, the equipment was much better. There was even a rock-climbing wall available. On the second level, there was a track that the university students were using. Chou and Shiho ended up using the treadmills. The machines could be set for time or distance, letting them do some warm-ups before going for the mile. Morgana even tried to trot alongside her, but soon jumped off and decided to watch instead.

Shiho kept up well despite not having focused on running before. After they showered, they met up in a sitting area near the entrance. “That was actually relaxing,” Shiho said happily. “Volleyball requires a lot of focus; you’re always paying attention to the ball, your teammates, and the opposite team. But running like that let me put things out of mind and just enjoy moving. If I’d thought of it before, I might’ve run more often.”

“It is meditative,” Chou agreed.

“Hmm, you could say that,” she said. “Then we should do this more often; I could use something relaxing to do. But I’m not sure this is something I could focus on.” She put a hand to her chin.

“You not going to find another volleyball team to play for?” she asked.

“It’d be unlikely,” she said, briefly disappointed. But she seemed settled on it. “At the high school level, there isn’t much for independent teams; it’s school based. It was my dream at one point to play in the Olympics. But, something Kamoshida unintentionally taught me is that I can’t rely on volleyball for a living. No matter how good I get, I should be doing something else too.”

“Makes sense, even if it sucks,” Chou said.

Shiho nodded. “There is a professional volleyball league, but the women’s side is often watched by guys who just want to see pretty girls running around. Although I suppose any women’s sports is going to have that negative. I could easily get into a university like this on the volleyball I’ve done so far. That was a part of my goals at first.”

“It’d be great, but what would you study at a university?” Chou asked.

“That is the question.” After a pause, she explained, “You weren’t involved with the dreams that took Kamoshida down, but I remember some of it pretty well. As much as he intimidated us, he ended up being a pitiful person. I’d never pity him, but he pinned so much on his stardom that without it, he had nothing. He thought being a gym teacher was beneath him. But he needed a regular job for a living; I get the feeling that he wouldn’t have been able to get any other job. I don’t want to end up in the same situation.”

“You could try out some things with part-time jobs,” she suggested.

“I do have time for that now,” she said. “Do you mind if we check the job stand in Shibuya?”

“Yeah, let’s go. If the flower shop there has an opening, it’s a pretty good job.”

“Working with flowers might be nice,” Shiho said as they got up to leave. “Though I might enjoy growing them more.”

At the job stand in Shibuya, Shiho started to search through the papers while Morgana patted Chou’s neck. “She’s looking for jobs, so how about that shelter? I’ve got the paper here.”

“Oh yeah,” Chou said, shifting her bag to get it. Morgana had the corner of it in her mouth to pass over. “I got an invitation to volunteer at a cat shelter here. I should check that out; we could go there too if you like.”

“A cat shelter?” she asked, pausing to look at her.

Chou nodded, checking the dates on the paper. “Yeah, I took Morgana to the vet there when I adopted her, and now I get her food and things at the store. We’d be taking care of homeless cats.”

Shiho smiled at that. “That could be pretty nice. I’d like to try out a few jobs, to see what I’d like.”

“Just don’t do too many at once.” She showed her the paper the vet had given her. “Looks like it starts soon, but we might be able to sign up today.”

“Sure, let me find at least one job…” After a moment, she picked one out. “Was this the flower shop?”

On seeing the name Rafflesia, Chou nodded. “That’s it, yes.”

“Hmm, if you say it’s good, maybe I should try it. I’ve never had a part-time job before, so it’s better to start with a good one, huh?”

“You can learn things from bad jobs, but if it’s your first, a good one would be easier to learn the usual expectations from,” she said.

“Right, I’ll call them later.” She put the job listing away so they could head up to the cat shelter.

There, the clerk at the shop counter directed them to the third floor where the shelter was located. Chou let Morgana out while they waited on the manager to meet up with them. The kennels were stacked two high, but had plenty of room for each cat. Near this waiting area, there was also a large glassed-off area where four cats were playing around a carpeted cat tower. Opposite that, there was a grooming area with a sink for bathing and various supplies in a cabinet.

The manager was a woman who was dressed casually for being at work; her green vest had several pockets and her hair was tied up in a bun. “Thanks for coming in,” she said with a smile, sitting down by them. “I’m Yoshiko Okabe; I manage both the store and the shelter. How did you hear about our volunteer positions?”

Chou handed over the flier. “I got this from Dr. Okabe the other day, at a cat spa in Suidobashi. I invited my friend along because she was interested too.”

Almost immediately, Mrs. Okabe noticed Morgana’s name in the corner of the flier. “Ah, so this is Morgana then?”

“Certainly,” Morgana said.

Mrs. Okabe chuckled. “I see, she is a cheerful cat. It was a while ago, but my husband told me that I should accept Morgana’s owner as a student volunteer. He’s the head vet here; he’s like that, judging people by their cats or how they treat cats. But while I have his word, I do need you both to fill out the official form.”

“That’s fine,” Chou said. “What would our volunteer work include?”

“That depends on how much you know, although we’ll train you for some of the work,” she said, then gestured to the grooming area. “You’d be helping with grooming the cats along with cleaning their cages and the equipment. There’s some office work in adoption papers and forms too. As volunteers, you won’t be working in the store, although you might assist those adopting cats in finding supplies. And there’s some miscellaneous tasks you might get asked to help with, including helping the cats become comfortable socializing with humans.”

“That sounds good,” Shiho said.

“Do you mind if my cat is around?” Chou asked. “I take Morgana with me nearly everywhere.”

“I’ll be nice to the cats too,” Morgana said. “Even if I’m not actually one myself.”

Mrs. Okabe gave it a thought. “She is wearing a collar, so it should be fine as long as she doesn’t get into fights. Also, are you both in high school?”

“Yes, we attend Shujin Academy,” Shiho said.

She made a note on her phone. “I’ll have to check, but you could potentially earn school credit with our summer volunteer program. If you’re a regular volunteer, you may make your own schedule and come in when you have some time. If you specifically sign up as a student volunteer, and if your school is a part of the program, you’ll need to volunteer a minimum of one hundred hours, including a two week period over your summer vacation working a full time schedule as a shelter assistant. It counts as public volunteer service and a job experience, whether you want it for further education or a job after graduating. That program starts on the first of July, though you’re free to come in for some training hours earlier.”

“That sounds great,” Shiho said; Chou nodded to agree. “I hope we can do that.”

Mrs. Okabe then got the volunteer sign-up forms for them. On looking things up, she found that Shujin would accept this program as credit towards their grades; she brought in an extra form for them to turn in to the school counselor. Neither form had a place to note any legal status. Feeling that she should be honest about this, Chou said, “I should mention that I’m currently on probation for an accusation of assault; I don’t know if that’ll interfere with a volunteer position.”

As she gave it some thought, Mrs. Okabe glanced at Morgana. And Shiho didn’t feel like being quiet on it. “We’re sure that she was framed for it,” she said. “She’s not a violent person. Actually, she’s been helping me and a couple other friends with our studies. All three of us had our scores improved because of it.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mrs. Okabe said. “I’ll also take in the testimony of your cat in considering this.”

“But you can’t understand me,” Morgana said, looking at her.

Mrs. Okabe still smiled. “She looks healthy and comfortable with you, and she’s been listening to us well. Because of that, I feel like you’d treat our cats well too.”

“I will, you can count on that,” Chou said with a smile.

“Right, we’ll do our best!” Shiho said as a chime sounded in Chou’s head. Once they signed up, Shiho’s parents called her back home for dinner.

Chou went to the diner there, to get dinner and wait to help Yoshida out. As she was waiting on a sandwich and a drink they called Frui-tea, she checked on her Confidant list. “Just what I thought,” Chou said, showing Morgana that Shiho Suzui was now listed as her Chariot Confidant since Ryuji had been nulled.

“That’s good, though kind of odd,” Morgana said.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, putting her phone away.

“Well I thought she might be one since she’s one of your school friends,” she said. “All the others in that group were: Ryuji, Ann, even Yuuki. But she wasn’t. Since she’s replacing one of your nulled Confidants, does that mean she wouldn’t have been one if the Master didn’t do that?”

“Maybe… that is odd.” After giving it some thought, she added, “We know that there are alternate histories. I remember her telling me once that she felt like it should have been her instead of Yuuki that ended up in the hospital because of Kamoshida. I was also told by someone that the Game Master took some information from at least one other timeline. It might be that Shiho wasn’t meant to be a Confidant. But she is now, and even if she wasn’t, she’s one of my friends. That matters more.”

“Agreed,” Morgana said.

She got in some time for homework before she had to go meet up with Yoshida. When she got there, he was checking something on his phone. But he put it away once he saw her. “Good, you came early,” he said. “I’ve had some ideas for changing my speech today, but my new ideas may be on the controversial side. It would get attention; it could get me some new followers, or turn people away. What do you think?”

“Well is it something you believe in?” Chou asked. “That’s what would matter to me, at least. If you feel strongly about it, why not?”

“One should refrain from recklessness,” Yoshida said, thinking aloud. “Especially in a highly visible field like politics where people will pick apart any statement or action as a means of attack. Still, there are times when one should take risks. And it is something I have been considering. Very well, I’ll test out the audience and see where this goes.”

The topic he must have had in mind was about the Phantom Thieves. He didn’t mention them much; he started with talking about the responsibilities of leaders and how current politicians were failing to fulfill them. When he had a decent crowd, he mentioned that such failures and corruptions led to the rise of vigilantes like the two of them. Yoshida didn’t say if he thought the Phantom Thieves were good or bad. Instead, he used their existence and the interest in them as another proof of the lacking of the current government and police force. Still, just that small mention got all those listening interested in listening more. Some pedestrians walking by stopped to hear what he was saying too.

Once the speech was done, Yoshida seemed satisfied. “I’ve spoken with Matsushita a few times the past couple of weeks. You remember him?”

She nodded. “Yeah, the Dietman who used to be a pro wrestler.” Maybe she should mention him to Shiho.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he seemed thoughtful. “He had a good point in that I need to get the attention of voters; you need to do that with any audience to a speech. But I never feel comfortable using a hook merely to get people to listen. One should use a hook they believe in, then show their passion and determination! But many people would say something to grab attention without meaning it. A skillful speaker can bamboozle listeners into forgetting about the hook, but that is dishonest.”

“So what do you believe about the Phantom Thieves?” Chou asked.

He seemed glad that she knew the hook for what it was. “I believe that they’re doing a good thing, although whether they’re good themselves or not is something that requires more information. There’s a strong possibility that they believe that they’re heroes doing good things. But as I was saying during the speech, they’ve become notorious because they’re saving people who have been ignored. It gives hopes to others who have given up their situation as unchangeable. Of course, we can’t expect any kind of vigilante to solve everyone’s problems. But we cannot discount the importance of getting others to ask for change rather than accepting their lot in life.”

“Right, that is important too,” she said.

“What do you believe about the Phantom Thieves?” Yoshida then asked her.

“I think they’re heroes, and that they’re awesome,” she said, pretending the part of a fangirl again. “They saved several of my friends now. I even had a dream encounter with them.”

“Really?” he asked, interested.

Chou nodded. “I got a text from them one evening, saying that I had sinned and they’d steal my heart. I know the dream was weird, but it didn’t seem like a nightmare. When I woke up, there was another text from them apologizing. Apparently I’d been reported for things I didn’t do, again. They awakened my Persona as a part of their apology, which is like a guardian spirit. My Persona has been helpful in keeping me confidant and calm despite anything that happens.”

“That’s a good thing to have,” Yoshida said. “And good to hear that they recognize their mistakes. Still, I feel like it would be best to watch their next move to make a better judgment on them.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh yes, I wanted to warn you to be careful in this neighborhood in the afternoon. You’ve heard about the phishing scams, right?”

“Yeah, they’ve been on the news a lot lately,” she said.

“They’re actually downplaying how bad things are,” he said, then gestured to a side street. “I’ve seen a couple of their victims now, one of which was mutilated, perhaps for life. The other was a nervous wreck, telling me that he’d been forced to give up his bank account information to avoid having a family member being killed. While I tried to help him, a police officer showed up to arrest him. I asked for the young man to be trusted, but I don’t know what will come of it. The crime group, from what I’ve heard, operates primarily in the afternoons and targets young people like yourself. Although, I have been presented with a suspicious offer myself just this past week.”

Then Kaneshiro’s mafia was bothering Yoshida too? “I haven’t been bothered, but I’ll be careful,” she said.

“I suppose it’s another sign of corruption,” he said. He might have known something more, because he then added, “Even so, I should be careful too. There are reasons that the news shows aren’t reporting the full story, and not just because the mafia would target those who speak ill of them too loudly.”

After saying goodbye to him, she met back up with Morgana coming down from her perch. “Heading back home now?” she asked.

“Well there’s something I’m curious about,” Chou said, letting her back in the bag. “Nothing big, I just want to see a place.”

With that, they headed up to a walkway that crossed over the street to another building. It wasn’t too busy, perhaps due to being in the evening. She let Morgana back out for a bit; she was quick to take up a perch on a support to the handrails. Outside the arching windows, they had a good view over the traffic on the street below, the giant screen showing the news, and the lights in the buildings around them. The rain was light tonight; it had barely fallen during Yoshida’s speech and was just now making watery lines down the glass. The view was surprisingly nice for being of a city street.

They spent a moment there in silence, at least until her phone chimed. Chou brought it out to check the message, then reply. “Makoto wants me to stop by school early tomorrow, so I suppose we shouldn’t stay around for too long. It’s a nice view, though.”

“Yeah, so many people going all kinds of places.” Morgana looked up at her and said, “So he thinks he owns all this, huh?”

Leaning on the handrail and keeping her aura and voice low, she said, “Yup. He’s not even doing things to improve the neighborhood or the like. Given what we’ve already seen, maybe he just wants money.”

“Hmph, he could get that without the cruelty,” Morgana said as Chou felt something tingle near her eyes. “Kaneshiro must be a real pig.”

There was… someone with more magical power than either of them nearby. Chou rubbed Morgana’s head and quietly said, “That’s what it seems to be.” Then she gave her a serious look and put a finger on her nose. “Hush.”

“Hmm?” She shifted her ears towards Chou, then in another direction. Morgana’s whiskers twitched along with the end of her tail.

“It’s all right, I’m with you,” Chou said soothingly, raising her voice slightly.

“Oh, it is you,” a pleasant-sounding boy said from close behind her. Akechi stepped into her view with a bright smile on his face. “And what a cute cat you’ve found. Do you need help finding its owner?”

“She’s my friend,” Chou said, petting Morgana’s back while she looked over at Akechi. “She goes with me most places; I just didn’t have her along at the TV station the other day.”

“Ah, of course,” he said. “It would be trouble to bring a cat along there.”

Giving a nod, she then said, “I was just curious about this spot and needed a place to think. But she wants to pay attention to so much while not going far from me. It is a new place to us so she’s probably just curious about everything and getting overwhelmed.”

Akechi chuckled at that. “At least you didn’t stop by during the afternoon rush hours, then. There would be a lot more for anyone to get distracted by. I just happened to be heading this way after looking into something. Were you thinking aloud about someone named Kaneshiro?”

Morgana’s ears twitched at this; thankfully, she said nothing. Chou hung her head and said, “Ugh, don’t remind me of that again.”

“About what?” he asked, playing innocent.

But perhaps he was playing that as much as she was. “Some new jerks reminded me of old jerks, that’s all,” Chou said. “I thought I’d escape that kind of thing when I got moved to Tokyo, but nope. I don’t wanna talk about it, at least around an acquaintance like you.”

“I see,” he said, seeming disappointed. “But if it would help, I’d be glad to lend you an ear. You intrigue me.”

Instead of acknowledging that hook, Chou rubbed Morgana’s chin. “But I have been telling her about my troubles. It’s nice that I found a kitty friend so quickly here; talking with them helps me out.”

“Hmm, it might help,” Akechi said. “Sorry, but who is this Kaneshiro you know?”

“A jerk you wouldn’t know,” she said, thinking back over the poster that had been in the Palace. “Tall and bony with a punk fashion sense. But that’s pretty much all I know about the guy. What do you know about Kaneshiro? I could use some ideas on how to prank him.”

“We must know different men known as Kaneshiro,” he said, disappointed. “It’s someone who’s come up in an investigation of mine. Definitely not someone to pull a prank on, though. Say, are you doing anything now? I have some time to spare.”

“I’ll be heading down to catch the train home,” Chou said, opening up her bag to let Morgana in. “There’s something I need to take care of early tomorrow. If you really want, we can meet up another time.”

“I suppose,” Akechi said.

“Good night, Akechi,” she said, then held her bag to her chest to take Morgana carefully.

“Good night, Amamiya,” he said.

As they were heading into the station itself, Morgana gave a soft sigh of relief. “That was close. He heard me, I’m sure.”

“You’re the one who said the name,” Chou said quietly. “He couldn’t have brought it up on accident.”

“And what was up with him trying to be so friendly? You haven’t spoken with him much, right?”

“If I wasn’t a girl with supernatural senses and powers, maybe I would’ve thought he was sweet,” she said. “As it is, he probably thinks that I will lead him to new information and is trying to be close to me for that reason.” Then she chuckled. “But I know that, and I’m trying to get leads out of him. It’ll be fun to see which of us wins.”

“It’ll be us!”

“It should be.”

* * *

Women were fickle creatures; they denied themselves what they wanted, especially if it frustrated men. They didn’t mean what they said and expected you to get what they meant. As a result of those reasons and others, there was no guaranteed way to charm a woman. Although to be honest, Goro found there was no guaranteed way to charm anyone. But he heard this ‘wisdom’ from several different sources. He had a pretty good method for teen girls, at least he’d thought so. It had worked pretty well now that his popularity was growing; several girls had talked excitedly to him so far, perhaps too much so.

However, it wasn’t working on Amamiya. Maybe she was oblivious. Or, maybe she only pretended to be. And she talked with her cat when troubled? That might not be so strange. Still, there was something odd about that cat. Maybe it was just the bright blue eyes and the way she seemed to be following their conversation. Still, what was going to impress Amamiya enough to talk more to him? Maybe stopping by that cafe more often.

That night, he got called back to the prison cell. Felix was there; Goro briefly recalled the cat’s eyes seeing his. “Hey.”

“What is it now?” Goro asked, shaking his head.

“Have you seen my stationary box?” he asked. “It’s a dark blue with a pen and some arcane cards inside.”

“No, why would I know anything about that?” he asked. “Where did you lose it?”

Ignoring his annoyance, Felix said, “Well it was in a box here in Mementos. It should have been safe, but it’s gone now. While I have another set, the blue one was a gift from my teacher. Would you look for it, please?”

“Why should I?” he asked. “Especially after you drag me out here in the middle of the night for something unimportant like that.”

“It’s important to me,” Felix said, looking hurt by that. “I can still do some work with my regular set, but my best work comes from using that pen.”

Goro shrugged. “Then get better. You told me yourself that Mementos is a massive sprawling maze, right? A Shadow probably took your box. How do you expect to find something small like a stationary box in a place like this?”

“But you’ve been traversing the Metaverse for a couple years now,” he said. “I can tell you where I’d left it. And it’d be bending the rules some, but I can take you to other areas of Mementos if we get clues pointing in that direction. Not a precise level itself, you know the difficulty in that.”

“It sounds like a complete pain and a distraction from my goal, no,” Goro said.

Felix was definitely disappointed now, but he deserved it. “I see… well if you run across it, it’d be nice if you gave it back.”

Hmph. There were many more important things than some artist’s stationary set to pay attention to. It wouldn’t matter if he just forgot about this.


	55. The High Priestess

6/20

When she got to the platform for the train to Aoytame-Itachi, she found that Makoto was already there. “Good morning,” Chou said.

“Oh, good morning!” Makoto said, glancing back and smiling. “Thanks again for agreeing to come in early. If you want, we can register you as an assistant to the student council officially. But if you just want to help out with the second year trip, that’s fine too. It should help your reputation with your peers.”

“Thanks for that,” Chou said. “Did you figure out what was going on?”

“Yes, actually,” then she sighed. “Not only was the estimate on the budget intentionally set low, but one of the teachers on the committee had taken the surplus for personal use. It was Yamauchi.”

“Figures.”

Makoto nodded. “He’s been put on leave for investigation and should give back the money. But even if he does, we need to raise more money for activities. There are good discounts available for a large group of students, but we have to negotiate that.”

“I’m sure that could be done,” Chou said.

She smiled again, seeming confidant. “Yes. Do you understand English well enough to do such negotiations over the phone?”

“I know English pretty well, though that could be hard,” she said. “I’ll give it a try, but we could call in Ann Takamaki to help because English is her native language.”

“Oh yeah, that would be a good idea,” Makoto said. “For now, I’m calling a meeting of the second-years during homeroom period to let them know about the need for more fundraising. I know it’ll annoy a lot of them, but the student council has come up with a plan that should work. I just hope they don’t get angry with me for announcing this.”

That could be a problem, but it should help Makoto out if she could do this. “It’s a risk, but you could deflect that,” Chou said. “If they get angry, keep calm like your akido classes taught. That should keep them from staying angry.”

She nodded. “Right, I need to remember that more.”

Then Chou smiled. “And hey, I’m currently taking some speech lessons from a politician, so some of his tips might help you out today.”

“Oh really?” Makoto asked, interested.

On the train and the walk over to school, Chou gave her some of Yoshida’s tips. She was risking a negative audience due to the news she had, but it might be easier than the indifferent audience of cynics that Yoshida had to deal with. It was important for Makoto to express that she wanted to help and encourage the other second-years in making up for Kobayakawa’s irresponsibility. After all, they’d turned the students against the former principal and others who had protected Kamoshida. It shouldn’t be difficult to imply that this was another symptom of their corruption. Between them, they adjusted the speech that Makoto had planned and had her practice it in the student council room.

A vaguely familiar girl came in the room after she was done; she had a distinctive hairstyle, asymmetrical in a short bob. “Oh, are you busy?” she asked pleasantly first.

“No, you came in at a good time,” Makoto said. “Chou, this is Tomomi Inoue, vice-president of the council and the second year class representative. Tomomi, this is Chou Amamiya. She’s going to be acting as an assistant to the council.”

“Her?” Tomomi asked, incredulous.

“Is something wrong?” Makoto asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t think she can be trusted,” Tomomi said.

“She was one of those who accused me of cheating on the mid-terms,” Chou said calmly.

“I’m sure she didn’t,” Makoto told Tomomi. “She’s proven herself intelligent and reliable to me, which is why I’ve asked her to help out.”

“We’re going to be working together, huh?” Chou asked. “I already discussed with Makoto some things I can help with. I hope we can work together fairly.”

Tomomi narrowed her eyes at her, but she relented. “Very well, you should prove yourself here. Our classmates are counting on us.” And a chime sounded in Chou’s head. Her too? Chou had planned on just avoiding her, avoiding trouble in the process. And Tomomi seemed popular enough. There had to be something that made her an outcast too.

As Makoto said, the second-years were called into the gymnasium to discuss the trip. Chou was checking her phone when the announcement came; the Confidant list showed Tomomi was now the Emperor. Traditionally masculine, but the traits associated with it weren’t necessarily masculine: a power of intelligence over emotions, decisiveness and assertiveness, a leader seeking to increase their authority and dominance. She didn’t fully fit even discounting the masculine meanings; perhaps that was a hint of how she could grow.

At the gymnasium, Makoto and Tomomi were on the stage discussing something between them. Makoto took up the microphone once all the classes had arrived. “Good morning, everyone; thank you for coming promptly. Unfortunately, we have some bad news to discuss. We have a plan to correct careless mistakes made by our former principal.” She then explained how the trip had been mismanaged; she declined to say who had made off with the surplus, but mentioning that they were now on leave narrowed it down to Yamauchi as the teacher being missing today.

She then explained what the student council planned to do for some quick fund-raising. In late July, they would have the second-year class hold a summer festival with games, food stalls, and any other attractions that could be volunteered. Makoto even suggested that they show any displeasure by doing better than those like Kobayakawa expected out of them. Her confidence in them showed and the other students noticed. While some still thought this last-minute call for more funds was annoying, there felt like enough enthusiasm to make up for that.

On returning to homeroom, Chou’s classmates were already talking about how to make a good summer festival on top of what they’d be doing later in the year for the culture festival. Mrs. Kawakami was back; she still seemed tired, but she kept smiling and was alert. “The sign-up forms for jobs and ideas is due Friday of next week, in order to have time to prepare all the activities, prizes, and decorations. We’ll get assignments on this festival at the beginning of July and will discuss what we’ll be doing then. Now, here are the current options that the student council has suggested.”

One of those options was a fortune telling group; the sign-up sheet named Chou as the organizer for that group, in connection with the Young Occultists club. She would need to keep studying that book and meet up with Chihaya again once the rainy season passed, along with practicing readings on her own. While it looked like a lot of work and was something that she might have passed on taking it seriously last year, the Tarot cards were connected to her work as Joker now. And it really was only fair that she take an active part in this fundraiser; she’d done nothing to contribute to this class trip so far. Besides, popularity in school could have some benefits.

Behind her, Seong said, “Hey, do you really know how to tell fortunes?” A couple of girls and a guy nearby noticed and tried to pay attention without being noticed.

“I’m a student of the Tarot cards,” Chou said, reaching in her bag to pull out her deck. “See?”

“That’s pretty cool,” he said, smiling. He was like Kawakami: still tired from only having one day of rest after fainting, but much more cheerful than before. “I think fortune telling is fun, though I don’t know how to do it myself.”

Since the others were listening in, she said, “I don’t expect my fortunes to be accurate, but my teacher says I have promise.”

“Wow, really?” the girl next to her said.

Chou nodded. “Yes. She had me pick some cards from the deck, then put them back and shuffle the deck. I pulled the same set of cards twice more.”

“Whoa, that’s amazing,” Seong said, impressed.

“Maybe,” Chou said. “But I’ve got a little over a month now to study 78 cards, their meanings, and how they relate to each other. And keep on top of classes, but I’ve got this.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fun, just don’t overdo the studying,” Seong said. Meanwhile, one of the girls listening pulled out her phone. This should be good.

“Gotcha,” she said. “Are you doing better?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of things to sort out with the school now, but things will get better, I’m sure.”

“Right, I’m sure too,” Chou said.

At lunch, her friends wanted to talk about the meeting. “How could they be so irresponsible?” Ann asked. “They really thought sending us to Hawaii without any plans would be good enough.”

“As if we needed any more reason to dislike them,” Shiho said, frowning. “And did you hear? Makoto said that the teacher who took the money was on leave, but only Mr. Yamauchi is gone today.”

“It seems like his kind of scam,” Ryuji said. “Getting money for little effort.”

“People who do that suck,” Chou said.

Ann nodded. “But at least we’ll get the money back, and we’ll make our trip great ourselves! The student council is doing good things now. And you now what? I might be able to get the dance studio to do some lessons, like they were when we found them in Seaside Park.”

“No harm in asking about it,” Chou said. “And having the Heart of a Survivor group here would be good for lots of students.”

Beaming, Ann said, “Yeah! Maki’s been great, but having lots of positive support is a big help. Plus, it’ll be informative to those who weren’t directly affected.”

“I don’t know how to dance,” Shiho said. “But I think it could be fun to run some festival games. And are you really going to be doing fortune telling?”

“Sure thing,” Chou said, then looked to Yuuki. “Hope you don’t mind that I told them to contact me through the occult club. It’s related and I wanted to do something for this festival.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “Might even keep people coming. What kind of fortune telling are you going to have?”

She shrugged. “I can offer Tarot, but I hope some others have other methods. It’d be fun with a few options. Oh, and I do have gardening committee duties, so I’ll be coming in late tomorrow. And do you guys want to move our study sessions to another day?”

“Yeah, I want to keep doing better,” Ann said.

“Sure,” Shiho said. “I’m open to whenever after school now.”

“Could we do Thursdays?” Ryuji asked. “Because of Occult Club and track, that’s the day I usually have the time for it.”

“I could come again and help,” Yuuki said. “Thursday sounds good, especially because the club president canceled Thursday meetings.”

“Really?” Chou asked. “That sucks.”

He nodded. “Yeah, the few who argued against it weren’t enough to overturn the decision.”

“My job is irregular,” Ann said. “But I can let my manager know I’m doing study sessions on Thursdays, so I won’t be on-call then. Might still have some scheduled jobs, but I’ll keep up!”

“Oh yeah, I saw this catalog you were in earlier today,” Ryuji said. “Some girl had left it on a shelf, but I saw you on the cover. It made you see like some big sister.”

“That was the idea,” Ann said, smiling at the reminder. “That was a stressful shoot, but there were some fun parts.”

“You were pretty cool there,” Ryuji said. “But there was also some really hot model in there too. Not on the cover; one of the pictures said she was called Mika.”

“She was the stressful part of the shoot,” Ann said, irritated at the reminder.

“Are you two rivals or something?” Yuuki asked. “I’ve seen some pictures of her; she’s pretty popular.”

“Yeah, as that girl-next-door sort,” Ryuji agreed.

“If your neighbor is the bitch queen supreme, maybe,” Shiho said.

“Really?” Ryuji asked. “You don’t talk like that much.”

“I wouldn’t say it without meaning it,” Shiho said, although it seemed she was more angry at Mika for being mean to Ann rather than Mika being mean to herself.

“She acts ugly unless she thinks she can get something out of you,” Chou added. “Then it’s all fake cute and sweetness.”

“I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover, like they say,” Ryuji said. “Sounds like I’d rather not meet her after all.”

Ann laughed. “Is that the reason you were asking about her? Maybe you should have mentioned that first. Although, maybe it’d work.”

“Huh?” Ryuji asked, his eyes wide. “Not that I want to meet her now, but why?”

“Well she is rotten,” Ann said, looking thoughtful. “But I’ve been trying to show her that she doesn’t have to be that way. She’s advanced quickly, but has made enemies quicker. Maybe if she met a normal guy like you, she might see what her attitude does?”

“Or maybe not,” Shiho said. “She’s ruthless.”

“Has she improved any?” Chou asked.

“Not in the least,” Ann said. “It’s like she said, she’s too popular for the agency to drop her even though they no longer trust her in the office. But it’s made her more aggressive behind their backs.” She paused. “Well, not aggressive like fighting, but lots of nasty words and looks. Just yesterday, I brought one of the other models over to my volunteer position to speak with a counselor because Mika was going on and on about the importance of being sexy. Tia got really insecure over that, so even though I hadn’t spoken much to her, I had to help her out.”

“Still putting out the fires she starts, huh?” Chou asked. Mika was popular, so her name could probably be figured out… if she was using her actual name, that is. “I hope things get better, even if it has her leaving the agency.”

“If she leaves, she could be in a lot more trouble,” Ann said, worried.

“Sometimes you really are too nice, Ann,” Shiho said. “It’s good from you, but don’t let her hurt you anymore.”

“I should be fine, but maybe not her,” Ann said.

The rest of the school day passed as normal and Chou went to take care of the plants around school grounds. While doing so, she came across Makoto speaking with Sadayo and another teacher, Ms. Chouno. “I wasn’t aware that I was in the trip planning group,” Sadayo said. “Yamauchi and Nakiro only told me that I would be one of the teachers going along; they never told me about when any meetings were.”

“How can you miss being in a group like that?” Ms. Chouno asked.

“She’s not the only one unwittingly used as filler,” Makoto said.

“Maybe, but she’s been leaving meetings early for a while,” Ms. Chouno said. “And you’re nowhere to be found after school hours. We’ve had enough trouble over this year, so it’s clear we need to find the sources of trouble and change our school for the better.”

While Sadayo seemed more confidant, she was still at a loss on how to explain what she was doing without it looking terrible. Chou stopped by them. “Oh, sorry for interrupting,” she said.

“What is it?” Makoto asked, then glanced at the two teachers. “She’s assisting the student council now.”

Chou smiled, then said, “Well I didn’t have any more questions for you now, but Kawakami? About the bonus composition essay, I wanted to ask about some of the details.”

“Oh right, but could we meet up later?” Sadayo asked. “Like over dinner; I’ve been wanting to try that place you mentioned, and I need to go back to the library to check on Choi’s progress once we’re done with the school trip discussion.”

“Sure, that’ll be fine,” Chou said.

Ms. Chouno smiled. “Ah, Amamiya-chan, you’re really buckling down on getting honors recognition, is it?”

“I’m trying,” she said. “Ms Kawakami’s been a big help in that.”

“Really?” Ms Chouno asked. “Well I’m sorry for accusing you then, Sadayo. I didn’t realize you might be busy all the time helping out your students.”

“Well I’m not going to give up on students that others might not want to put in effort for,” Sadayo said.

“You really are an ideal sort of teacher,” Ms. Chouno said. “Which means we need to keep you around, and give every student the chance to succeed.”

“Of course,” Sadayo said, hiding her relief that it got accepted.

“Well pardon me then, I need to check on the courtyard plants,” Chou said, bowing her head to take her leave.

Before she got out of hearing, though, she overheard Ms Chouno say, “You know, she’s a much better student than any of us expected.” Chou chuckled quietly to herself. This was going well.

Haru had asked her to check on the rooftop vegetables, so Chou went to do that. There was still quite some time before she would meet up with Kawakami. Maybe there was somewhere to do some reading? Things were better, but she still wanted to avoid somewhere busy with students. But as she was coming out to the hall from cleaning up, she saw Makoto in the hall. “Got things sorted out?” Chou asked.

“It’s getting there,” Makoto said, rubbing her head. “I’ve spoken with all the teachers who were listed as planning the trip now; Kawakami was hard to track down, but she was the third member that had no clue she was in the group. And the two active members were sloppy and full of themselves, just like Kobayakawa. It concerns me that these selfish teachers held authority and almost got away with their crimes. But then, we also have some great teachers and staff members who really care about the students and each other.”

“But we’re focusing on the other students to prove that our school is still great, right?” Chou asked.

She nodded. “Right, we have great students around too who are rallying up others and doing so much. I need to be doing what I can to help, though I do need to make sure I’m good for entrance exams.”

“How did you do on those practice ones the other week?”

She was glad for the reminder. “Pretty good, but I can do better. My sister said I have to be one of the best to get into law, but I’m still thinking about it. Last year, they had us take one of those tests to recommend a career, but I didn’t pay much attention to the results. I signed up to take it again; it cost me this time, but I’ve become sure that I need to reassess my position.”

“It’ll pay off,” Chou agreed.

Makoto smiled. “Yes. And I feel like things are going well, although the reason why,” she paused, putting a hand to her cheek. “Well, you’re interested in the occult and psychology, so maybe…”

“I’d believe you, even on something weird,” she said.

“Thanks.” She still took a moment to think, then explained, “I’ve been having odd feelings occasionally, which compounded into a dream last night. I don’t know the reason behind them, but they’re strangely specific feelings. It’s like if I’m playing a familiar game with a familiar opponent, like people who play Go or Shogi against each other frequently. But in this round, my opponent is using an unfamiliar strategy and I have no idea how to proceed.”

“One should be adaptable, especially in games like that,” Chou said. “Although I’ve never played either, so I wouldn’t know.”

Makoto shrugged. “I’m not that great, but I enjoy the strategy involved. You know, Gun About involves some strategy too. I thought it was just another video game, but I suppose I was mistaken even about that. When I looked some things up, I figured out that when you study your abilities and weapons, you can start playing strategically even though it’s a game about shooting things. Like, we might end up needing a tank type partner for the skeleton battalions, to help with drawing their fire and giving you an opening to start up our strategy. But I don’t know anyone else who plays.”

“I know someone who’s interested,” she said “But she’s very shy and not convinced to come out to an arcade yet.”

Makoto looked concerned. “Really? Well, I wouldn’t mind speaking with her and trying to make her feel more comfortable, at least with me and you in a public place.”

“It’d help, but it could be a while.”

She shrugged. “Well, the game’s not that important, but let me know if I can help with her. But back to that dream I had, I was looking in a mirror and saw myself in distress. She said that we were in trouble with Kobayakawa and Sae. I mean, Sae is still strict, but Kobayakawa is no problem anymore. Then she mentioned there was trouble with the Phantom Thieves in Shibuya. It is getting dangerous in Shibuya, which is intimidating when I go through the station there nearly every day. But she knew who the Phantom Thieves were, and I don’t.”

“That would be worrisome,” Chou said.

“She didn’t tell me about everything, but she did worry me,” Makoto said. “Normally, I’d dismiss it as just a dream. But these odd feelings I have are like that dream. Would that mean anything? Like this is something I’ve done before, but it’s going differently.”

Chou nodded. “Yeah, I’ve read about something like this.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised.

Deciding to make this interesting, she explained, “One could say that the universe is full of infinite possibilities. Like if you decided early on to not fit in with your sister’s idea to study law, your life would be different now.”

“It would be,” Makoto said. “I could hardly imagine it, but I did consider it at times before following her lead.”

“Different decisions could lead to different lives and histories,” she went on. “Which could lead to things like a woman as pope who happens to be a biker too.”

That made her laugh. “It could be possible! Actually, I’d like to live in that kind of world.”

Chou smiled. “Yeah, that would be cool. But if you let a different history concern you too much, then problems start to arise. Things start to look like paradoxes and you might open up the world to demons, that is, if they exist. But in any case, does what happened to you in another life really matter to you in this one?”

After a moment, she said, “I suppose not. And sometimes, worrying too much about something is its own problem. Although if I have that dream again, I might encourage her that she can do better.” Makoto smiled. “Like I am.”

“Right, but both of us could do even better,” she said.

“Of course.”

“Hey!” A pair of girls came up to them; their pins marked them as seniors like Makoto. “What’re you up to, Makoto?”

She glanced at them, then said, “Oh, hello Eiko, Nozomi. I’m just speaking with Chou here. What about you? It is getting close to last bell.”

“We were just coming out of our club,” one of the girls said. “But what about, you, huh? You dating this junior?”

Baffled, Makoto looked at the girl blankly. “Huh? What gave you that idea?”

“You two are looking so cute, chatting and laughing here,” she said, smiling brightly for some reason. “And it’s such a scandal, huh? The squeaky clean student council president falling for a younger transfer student with a dark past… eek, it’d pay double to see a movie like that!”

“Um, it’s not like that, Eiko,” Makoto said.

Eiko didn’t seem to care. “It’s like me and my Tsukasa, you know? Your parents must be like, they’d throw a fit if they found out you were dating a girl, especially a girl like her.”

“You’re misunderstanding things,” Makoto tried again.

“Oh don’t worry, it’s such a sweet scandal that I’m not about to tell,” Eiko said.

“We’re not dating,” Makoto insisted more emphatically.

Nozomi shook her head. “Sorry, you know how she gets.”

“But it’s not the kind of thing you’d just admit, even if I’ve got you right,” Eiko said. Then she put a hand to her chest; if she was in an anime, Chou was sure that Eiko would have sparkly eyes now. “Though she’s got nothing on me and my Prince Charming! You’d totally fail a test of love.” She giggled.

“I would not,” Makoto said, making both of the girls giggle. “Ugh…” she put a hand on her forehead, but was blushing this time.

Chou was pretty sure that Makoto didn’t like her in that way. But it gave her an idea that was irresistible. “Well she might surprise you, as she has me,” Chou said.

Now flustered, Makoto stammered a bit. Eiko’s gigglefit increased. “Oh my, really? Hey, maybe you can come out with us Saturday and prove it, make this a real group date!”

“Uh, could you?” Nozomi asked, nervous all of a sudden. “Eiko wants to introduce me to her boyfriend, but I don’t have a date myself, yet. Um, and it would be better with a group, I think.”

“Don’t worry, you’re just getting worked up over nothing,” Eiko said, patting her friend’s arm. “Like I’ve been saying. Yeah, Tsukasa is a club host in Shinjuku, but he’s not some scumbag like everyone thinks a club host is. He’s a very sweet man. Though it would look better as a real group date, maybe with a third couple?”

“But our friends turned us down,” Nozomi said. “Um, could you come help? I mean, join us, right? Anyone would think you two are a cute charming couple, and you could prove that you’re not clueless.”

“I am definitely not clueless,” Makoto said. “I guess I don’t have anything major planned then…”

“Sure, we could help out,” Chou said.

“Great!” Eiko said, then reached into her bag. “Whoops, I forgot my cell. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a jiffy!” She then rushed off.

“Same old Eiko, huh?” Makoto asked.

Nozomi nodded. “Yeah, same old Eiko. I mean, she’s a good person, just, ditzy kinda? But hey, thank you so much for agreeing to this. I was so worried about how I would handle things Saturday.”

“What’s the matter?” Makoto said. “Did you two have a disagreement?”

“Yeah, because of her weird boyfriend.” She sighed. “I mean, I was worried about her when she told me she got a job in Shinjuku, at a so-called salon that has the waitresses in schoolgirl uniforms. Eiko said it wasn’t anything pervy and they had rules; she seemed happy about it, so I was starting to accept that when she got this boyfriend. However ‘charming’ she thinks he is, he sounds sleazy and my gut tells me that he’s no good for her. But she thinks meeting him will change my mind. Maybe it will, or maybe if you two can act like a good couple, she might start thinking something’s not right with her and Tsukasa. Or if, you know, we could find an actual couple to join us. I just want to help Eiko out before she gets in trouble, but I dunno what to do.”

“We’ll come along and help you figure out what the deal is here,” Makoto said. “I mean, I haven’t been on a group date and we’re really not dating, but maybe other opinions will help convince her. I’d have to meet the guy myself, but it does sound like the start of a bad story.”

“I’ll ask around and see about inviting another couple,” Chou said.

“Thanks, let’s exchange numbers then.” They did so, and got Eiko’s number when she got back. She seemed thrilled to have them along and headed off with a smile.

Makoto smiled and waved back, but then looked puzzled. “Uh, I’m not quite sure how that happened.”

“A delusional misunderstanding?” Chou suggested.

“I suppose.”

“Oh, and sorry if I embarrassed you there,” she added. “I thought it was funny.”

“Well, I guess it helped them get our help,” Makoto said, calmer now. “I never thought I’d go on a group date to help someone else. But it sounds like Nozomi does need the help, to help Eiko.”

“And you couldn’t let them get away with saying you’d fail a test of love?” Chou asked, a smile escaping her.

“I would not,” she said. “Although, there wouldn’t really be a test on love, huh? And if there was a test, well any test could be studied for.” She paused. “Right?”

Chou shrugged. “I’ve read some poems that say that love can test you in unexpected ways.”

“Well we might want to take this date thing seriously,” Makoto said, then stopped. “Uh, I don’t mean us dating seriously, I mean just this one date thing. You’re a good friend, just…”

“It’s fine, you’re a good friend too,” Chou said. “But if we want to learn more and help them out, acting serious will help.”

“Agreed. Well then, I suppose we’d best prepare for this weekend.” She pardoned herself to head back home.

Chou met up with Sadayo near the teacher’s lounge. She smiled. “Oh, do you mind exchanging our actual numbers? I could just look yours up, but this would be easier.”

“Sure,” Chou said, taking out her phone to add her as a contact.

“So you wanted to know about the bonus essay?” Sadayo asked, then quietly added, “For now, it shouldn’t take long.”

“Yes, let’s head over to the station,” she said with a nod.

On the way over to Leblanc, the rain was noisy against their umbrellas. There were a few customers inside: an elderly couple that Chou saw frequently and a pair of men at the counter chatting with Sojiro. Sadayo went ahead and paid for their meals, then they took another booth for themselves. At first, they discussed the bonus essay for Composition, then other extras Chou was doing or could do to impress the group that judged honors qualifications. Sadayo felt like doing some community service by volunteering at the cat shelter would help too, as long as the forms got approved before semester finals. “If you were anyone else, all that would be a near guarantee that you’d be in the top position of the second years,” she said. “Tomomi would be your closest competitor as she has an edge in having an official student council position.”

“Is she that good?” Chou asked.

Sadayo nodded. “Yes, she’s a favorite of several teachers out of all the students, and not for nothing.”

“I don’t mind a good rival,” Chou said with a smile.

“As long as she gives up on accusing you of cheating, it could be good,” she said. “As things are, it depends on if certain staff members can give up their prejudices about you. I’ll do my best to speak for you, and I’m sure others will too.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And how are you doing now?”

Giving a warm smile, she said, “A lot better, actually. The hospital told me to take things easy this week; I have cut back on things, but I do want to focus more on the school and my own life. And you know, I got a call from,” she glanced aside, but the other customers and Sojiro were paying attention to other conversations, “them, on Sunday. It was a world of difference from other calls. He even said that he’d give back all the money they’d taken from me.”

“That’s great, you could treat yourself a bit,” Chou said.

“A bit,” Sadayo said, then chuckled. “I’m not sure how much money that is… he did say that they had been planning on buying a new car. That was why the last call was such a high demand; he knew that I’d not missed a payment. And just today, I got a call from a lawyer who is handling the case. It’ll take a few days, but they’re going to make things right, for both me and Seong-Min.”

“How is he doing?” Chou asked. “He seemed a bit tired today, but more cheerful than before. You too.”

“We’re free of these unfair injustices, thanks to a certain group,” Sadayo said. “It’s a huge weight off both of us, though I’m mostly just relieved right now. Seong-Min has got a lot more legal things to handle than me, though. He’s old enough to claim independence as long as he’s in school, which involves a lot of paperwork and discussing matters with social services. But he has support from me and Ms. Sonomura too. He could be busy with that for a little while.”

“I can invite him to the tutoring sessions I have with Ann, Yuuki, and our other friends,” she offered. “It could help him catch up with his studies.”

She nodded. “Yes, that would be great. His scores should be a lot better; I could see that in him today. But he has been dealing with a lot too.” Some thought made her frown. “You know, I heard some talk from other teachers over lunch break that Seong might be a student to push into dropping out. I told them that it was our responsibility as teachers to help all of our students, not to ignore those that were struggling but still trying. They were surprised at me, but I think I got them to reconsider.”

“We shouldn’t give up on him.”

“Right, I really don’t want to see another student like Taiki fall through the cracks.” She paused a moment to eat another bite, then said, “Seong is a lot like Taiki. Not entirely, but the situation is the same. He’s bright and he’s been doing his best to keep up. But, his parents passed away last year and then he ended up with the Takeses. No one can perform optimally under that much pressure. I sure know that, but I’ll improve too.”

“You’re improving already by being able to quit your night job,” Chou said with a smile.

Confidant now, she smiled back. “Yes, I’m going to talk to that boss tonight and return the uniforms. Buts much as I’d like to give him an honest piece of my mind, I’ll have to be polite about it. All my records there are under my work name; he doesn’t even know my real name. I don’t want to give him an excuse to find it and use those records against me. I do have a plan for this: when I go to speak to the lawyer, I’ll ask for any safeguards they can offer so that if problems related to that job arise, I can offer proof of the blackmail and do what I can to lessen the impact.”

“I won’t be betraying you,” Chou said.

“I trust you in that,” Sadayo said sincerely. “I can tell now that you really are a good person in a bad situation too. You just have unique options in how to handle things.” Then she leaned forward with a concerned look on her face. “But be careful, okay? I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re angering as many people as you save.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m also not surprised you won’t give up on it, just like you did in your attitude against the regular counselor.” Looking down at her mostly empty plate, she said, “You know, this is wonderful curry, unlike any I’ve had. But still, you should do what you can to keep a varied balanced diet. Tell you what, when we get some time together, I can take you out to a marketplace I like, and show you how to cook some things at my place. If I’m not pressed for time, I do know quite a few recipes and techniques. That sound good?”

Chou nodded. “Sure, sounds fine. I don’t have much to work with, but I’ll figure things out. And maybe some of your cleaning techniques?”

Now able to be proud of that, Sadayo chuckled. “Sure, that’ll be fun too. So how does he make his curry like this?”

“He keeps saying he’ll show me, but I haven’t earned his trust enough, I guess,” Chou said. “Sojiro’s strict and tight-lipped, but he’s a good guy. And he has been showing me how to brew coffee like he does.”

“That is a great skill to have, but I’m more practiced with tea,” she said. They chatted like friends for a little while before Sadayo left to quit being a maid.

A short while later, Chou and Morgana headed out to gather some more supplies to explore Kaneshiro’s Palace as evening fell over Shibuya.


	56. The Perks of Being Eye Candy

6/20

The walkway was warm, bustling, and noisy, with late afternoon rain streaking down the windows to make the outer lights sparkle. Day workers heading off to bars or home passed by night workers heading off to offices or other buildings. Here and there, a few others were standing around chatting just out of the stream of people passing through. He was by himself, thinking, working out the odds. His phone sent music to his wireless headphones, a background noise to further distance himself from the crowd. But, just thinking wouldn’t get him anywhere. This was a long shot; she might be a mere fangirl, he might have misunderstood something, they might indeed be thinking of two different people. But just in case…

Closing the music app, Goro brought up the Metaverse Navigator and opened up the link for the Palace of Junya Kaneshiro. This might be the wrong time to intercept the Phantom Thieves, might be the wrong place. But if he was right about Amamiya having a connection to the Thieves, they might be looking into the Shibuya mafia now. They’d have a hell of a time targeting the leader because Junya was well-guarded and his Palace was enormous. On the other hand, this place had the right level of difficulty progression for a player getting accustomed to the Game. It was a steep step up from Kenzo Hashimoto’s Palace; he wasn’t sure about Kyoko’s, but she was probably even with or weaker than her husband in the Metaverse. It’d be a wild stab in the dark for the Phantom Thieves, pretty much. The Hashimotos were easy people of power to target. If the Thieves managed to take down this Palace with their usual flashiness, their notoriety would skyrocket.

He decided on the mask of Ultrablack and headed out to flag down the bank. This was one obstacle that made for the large increase in difficulty: the Palace reached out over all of Shibuya, but manifested as a flying bank. Due to his connections, Ultrablack had an associate card to denote himself as an important visitor. A cognition of a guard appeared at the base of the money stairs and escorted him up to a VIP meeting room. Ultrablack scanned over the areas they walked through. Once he sat down to wait, he reviewed the scans and observations.

Having been here before, he knew what it generally looked like. It was a bank with Kaneshiro’s many victims as customers; they took out loans, handed over payments, and ended up beaten into a smoking stack of machinery and tossed right off the side. Fools… or rather, cognitions of fools who should have known far better. The ATM fools were acting just the same; the cognitions of bank workers and mobsters were acting just the same. There was nothing obviously broken or missing. In spots, there were little pedestals with golden pigs that should entice thieves to make off with them. But the golden pigs were where they should be.

“Are you picking up anything strange?” he asked, tapping his helmet by his ear.

“No, not beyond what’s normal,” Loki said. “The security level is normal, so there’s been no noticeable disturbances.”

“But that’s still not enough to discount this possibility,” Ultrablack said.

Kaneshiro’s Shadow then entered the room with the Shadow guards; they should be able to relate if there had been any disturbances.

* * *

Due to the rain, most people weren’t looking around. Still, Chou headed for the alleyway where Untouchable was. It was a store she’d been in several times and Iwai should help cover for her if something odd happened. She used the Navigator to get to Kaneshiro’s Palace. From there, she and Ace shifted to the second floor safe room to start their exploration.

A shriek followed their appearance, from a faceless female cognition sitting at the vanity. “What’re you doin’ in my room?” she asked in a fright.

Ace slipped into hiding quickly. Recalling Eiko earlier and mimicking her, Joker gave an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, I’m new here.”

That calmed her down immediately. “Oh, okay. Sorry, I shoulda figured as much since nobody but us comes in these rooms. We were due a new girl anyhow. So, you wanna hear some advice?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to disappoint,” Joker said.

“That’s important!” she said cheerily. “If you got here, you should know the basics already: always got to look beautiful! But here’s some important tips for pleasing Junya. You’ve got to pay attention to know when you can talk. Sometimes he likes hearing his girl chatter; sometimes he just wants her to be quiet. Just never ever talk about business. He hates that out of girls. Play dumb if he brings up the topic and wants you to talk. Oh yeah, and don’t be shy in the slightest about mentioning expensive gifts when he asks what you’re interested in. There are times that he loves to pamper us, even though he’ll grumble about the cost. But it makes him happy to buy expensive things to make his girls happy! Just thank him properly once you get the gift.”

“So be dumb, pretty, and grateful,” she said.

“Righto,” the cognition said. “Oh yeah, and when you’re in the club or somewhere with his followers, you’re to hang onto his arm, but don’t hug him fully. And no kissing or anything like that until he invites you to his private suite. When he does that, be sure to be really happy and grateful! Or else you might end up in the sex clubs, eventually forgotten in the morgue. That’s where we all end up anyhow, so enjoy this time when you get to be the arm girl of the most powerful man in Tokyo! There’s nothing else like it.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that all in mind,” Joker said. “I was called somewhere, so see ya.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, then went back to touching up her make-up.

Ace met her by the door. “That’s weird stuff; can’t imagine why people would agree to that.”

“It’s all his perceptions,” Joker said. “And the Treasure?”

“Deep below us,” she said. “We should search out a map, those always help.”

Knowing about the dog Shadows now, they checked where those Shadows were first. There were two, patrolling by the staircases down. The associate card that they’d gotten last time worked with a card reader leading to a maintenance room, but not to the central room of the second floor. After finding some dummy rooms and small treasures, Ace spotted a vent on a ledge near the central door. One of the dogs was patrolling nearby. They distracted it with the slingshot, then hopped up to the ledge to enter the vent.

The first thing Joker saw of the other end was a pacing guard Shadow. It was inside a security room reminiscent of those in the Hashimoto Palaces. By jumping down behind it, she was able to snatch off its mask before it had any idea it was in trouble. The guard turned out to be one of the stronger oni. Having faced several of them, it didn’t take long to defeat. Joker went over to the bank of screens to see what she could figure out.

“Ah, there’s a map right here!” Ace said, jumping to snatch a paper off the wall. She brought it over to put on a work desk. “Looks like a complicated place; lots of small halls and gates.”

“I should be able to upgrade the permissions on our access card here,” Joker said, taking the associate card and inserting it in a slot.

After some searching, she discovered that she couldn’t turn off the cameras from the security room. She could change the programs that dictated which cameras were constantly on and which shifted between on and off. All programs made sure that the ground level (so the speak) was almost fully covered. Through watching the screens, she could see that it was mostly taken up by the one large waiting room with teller desks. Elsewhere, there were many small offices and meeting rooms, like the one they’d entered through. There wasn’t much for treasure chests on that level, or anything else useful unless they wanted to mess with the cognitions. Although in one of the meeting rooms, she could see what must be Kaneshiro’s Shadow along with a few of his fashion-challenged lackeys. The large purple-toned man resembled the poster in the powder room; he was certainly dressed like one might expect from a bank executive.

“The Treasure isn’t on this map,” Ace said, pointing to the lowest level there. “But my whiskers tell me that beyond this point is the deeper subconscious, where Treasures often are. Getting there is going to be the issue.” She moved her paw to the layout four floors above the last. “Because here, there’s a giant door that’s noted as being double locked. Two different guards hold one key each to that door. There appears to be no way around the door. Maybe some hidden passages, we’ll have to look for those.”

Pressing some of the buttons caused corresponding screens to pause on one view. “I think that’s the big door,” Joker said, pointing out a screen she paused. “It certainly looks like a giant vault.”

After taking a look, Ace nodded. “I think so. And those are card key locks, so nothing we could pick. There’s another obstacle, but I think I already know a way past it.” She pointed out the ground level. “This elevator is the only way below the ground level; not even that passage we came in through leads into the basements. Is there a camera on that elevator?”

“Should be,” Joker said, looking at the map before watching the screens. When she spotted a likely view, she paused it. “This could be it.” A window then popped up on the screen, asking if she wanted to open up the elevator door. “Looks like you can’t get in that elevator without permission from security. We could open it from here and go down, but there’s at least four Shadows in the way, including that dog. We could split up, leave one person in here while the other scouts ahead. The vault door will need both of us.”

Ace traced a paw on the level with the vault door before pointing out a room nearby. “This should be a safe room; we can use that to our advantage in getting one of us there, then warping between the rooms. See here?” She pointed to the maintenance room they found. “This is right above the elevator. Remember that hole in there? That should lead into the shaft; the map even indicates that there should be a vent out in the basement. But, I don’t think we both should go that way. We’d have to wait on the Shadows to use the elevator and we’ve already taken out the guard stationed here. And, I have a thing we could use!” She dug in her pouch and pulled out an earbud. “Here.”

“Is this what Beholder gave us?” Joker asked, taking it.

“Yeah, and I adapted it a bit to work without that Persona,” she said. “This’ll let us communicate, and whoever is in here can watch over things. We need to figure out how to get those two keycards, and there’s a place that might help.” She pointed out a room on the floor with the vault labeled ‘Records’.

“We could find out a lot of interesting things there,” she said. Thinking of something, she opened up the drawers under the console. “In fact… hmm…” There were office supplies inside, including the thing she hoped for. “Ah good, this seems usable. It’s a PIN drive, something that we can store information on. We’d have to see if it could be read outside the Palace, but who knows?”

“Good thinking,” Ace said, then looked over the screens. “I can handle things here. You go on ahead to the safe room.”

“Okay, let’s be sure of a few things,” Joker said, checking over the controls. Once they were sure of their plan, she headed out for the maintenance room. The elevator could be brought up to the ground floor without opening the door; that got Joker down to the basement in short order without alerting any guards.

“You’re gonna need to go left out the door,” Ace said through the headset. “But there’s a dog Shadow in that hall. Hold on a moment and I’ll let you know when it’s safe to get out.”

“Got it,” Joker said quietly.

Ace continued to guide her, using the cameras to spot chests, direct her towards them, avoid Shadows if possible, and progress down to the vault door. She also gave advice on weaknesses and resistances. By ambushing any Shadow in her path with that information, Joker could take them down quickly despite being on her own. They even located a new treasure demon, a Queen’s Necklace that had different moves than Regent. It could be useful, perhaps for Arsene to keep him powerful.

Down in the Records room, Joker entered while hidden to get a good look around. One of the thugs in a loud pink pineapple shirt was at one of the computers; there were a dozen computers in there, along with big metal filing cabinets. A huge monitor was on one of the walls, currently flipping through business graphs and spreadsheets. “I can allow you to use any of those computers,” Ace reported. “There should be a question when you turn it on, and I have the answer sheet up on one of the monitors.”

She nodded and nearly responded, but the thug cognition got up from his seat. Walking by without noticing her, he took off the pineapple shirt and transformed into a guard Shadow. It then left the room to patrol the hall. “I want to try something,” Joker said, leaving the shadows to go to the rack of clothing. Picking out a red shirt with a seashell pattern, she put it on over her coat. It was several sizes too large for her, a good thing for this.

“Whoa, you look like one of those thugs with that on,” Ace said. “Nice thought; seems his mind associates the style with his underlings. That could get us places.”

“It could even get the vault door open,” Joker said, sitting at a computer with a good view of the door, without being visible from the hall. Turning it on, the password window popped up immediately. “This says ‘opiods’.”

“The password to that one would be… bananas. And hey, you remember how Kaneshiro’s Shadow was in that meeting room? He’s still in there.”

“That was on the first floor, right?” she asked, checking through the options. There was a code list for his organization, a code list for the bank, information on the drug and sex trades, important addresses, political contacts, law enforcement contacts, and Metaverse contacts. The contact information and addresses would be good to put on the drive; the mafia codes might come in handy, if a long shot. On the other hand, the bank codes would be useful now, something she could read over while copying the information.

“Yes,” Ace said. “I’ve been keeping one of the screens on that room, even found a way to get sound off it. But not much has happened. Sometimes the screen flickers and it seems like someone else is in there. It gives me a weird feeling.”

“What about it?” The page she got for bank codes wasn’t a list, but she paused before reading it to hear out Ace.

“Well, this Palace is just one layer of cognition to the world. That’s how things work. But when I look at the flickers of that screen, I feel like I can shift over to another layer, still be in the Palace, and see what’s going on over there. I don’t entirely know if it’ll work that way, but I feel good about it.”

“Can you escape back to the real world if things go wrong?” Joker asked. “If you feel that way, there may be something to it. Like how relevant information sometimes comes back to you. But if either of us gets lost here, it could be hard to find each other.”

“I’ve got some Goh-ms, so I can get out if I get in trouble. You?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got some too.”

“Okay, I’m going to see if I can do this…”

In the meantime, Joker read over the bank code information. ‘Passwords outside the vault levels follow the same rules as organization codewords; reference other list for those codes. Passwords inside the vault are all numerical PINs and hinted at in English. The letters are transposed into the numbers that most resemble them, in the case that they are used. ‘L’ would be ‘7’, but ‘l’ would be ‘1’, while ‘T’ and ‘t’ would also be ‘7’. ‘E’ would be ‘3’, and ‘e’ could be ‘6’ or ‘9’ but would be consistent through one document.’ It then repeated the message with this number cipher. Looking over it, Joker thought it’d be more difficult to read than use.

There was an extra line at the end of the document. ‘1 756 7415 525763 02762 429 0212 026 02 32 362 15 74311147 620094 3174 3291154 70 4649 17.’ It took twisting the letters about in her mind to figure out what it meant. Once she had it, it only said that Kaneshiro used this system himself and few people could figure it out. But it was important to know that she could figure it out too, as long as he didn’t use English words that she didn’t know.

Static came in from her earbud. “Ace, you back?” she asked quietly.

There was no reply, but her phone beeped. It was a message from a nonsensical source, along with an attached image. ‘It’s Ace; I can’t get back to where you are. But Kaneshiro’s Shadow is meeting with Ultrablack. I’ll listen in on their talk. Meanwhile, Kaneshiro can’t pay attention to you as long as you don’t leave. I’ll try to send along the map; get as far as you can in the Palace. You’ve got this!’

“Get as far as I can, hmm?” She checked the image, finding the map there. It was too large to see in full on her screen, but zooming in to individual levels worked out. Having this, Joker smirked. “Sounds like a good challenge.”

The data was still being transfered to the drive. Joker checked over the map in thought. Once the drive had the information, she took it out and proceeded with her plan. She made her way down to the safe room nearest to the vault door. With the red shirt on, the Shadows were ignoring her. But she took it off in order to transfer back to the second floor safe room. The girl cognition was still there, fixing up her make-up. Joker left, put the shirt back on, then checked the security room just in case. There was no one inside, so Ace had made it to some other version of this Palace. They’d have to figure that out when they got back together.

Recalling some information from the organization codes, she rapped her knuckles on the safe room’s door three times. “Miss, you’ve got a personal call.”

There was a squeal from inside before the female cognition came to open the door. “Really? Great! I’m almost done, let me get my shoes.”

“Hold up,” Joker said, keeping the door open. “There’s a draft in here. Not saying I suspect you, miss, but for your own safety, I need to come check it out.”

“Okie-dokie,” she said, letting her come in again. Joker let the girl put on her shoes, then took her hand to transfer her over to the safe room near the vault. The cognition didn’t show any awareness of it as they walked out to head to a nearby security station.

It was smaller than the second floor station, but had two guards with gold-accented uniforms inside. She rapped on the door frame three times to get their attention. “Hey bud, I need to escort this young beauty to the inner den. Get us through the door, would you?”

“What orders you got to get her there?” one of the guards asked gruffly.

While Joker was coming up with an excuse, the girl cognition leaned forward cutely. “Aw, come on, I’m going to see my darling Junya! He called for me to be there. Are you gonna stop me from seeing him? That’s so sad.”

Joker nodded. “Sad for her and sad for him once he gets done with his meeting.”

“We don’t want that,” the other guard said, coming over to the door.

“H-hey, don’t mistake me for standing in their way!” the first one said, quickly putting in some commands to the system. “We’ve got to be careful with the guest here. But you’re one of us; we’ll get you in.”

“Good,” Joker said, stepping aside to follow them over.

The two guards put in their cards at the same time, allowing bars to retract and let the circular door swing open. Past that, Joker found herself and the girl cognition walking through a glass hallway with paper bills fluttering down like the rains in reality. There were even bills scattered all over the hall, only letting the marble floor peek through. It was quite a sight, but Joker did her best to ignore it as she escorted the girl. According to the map, the inner den was on this level. There were inactive laser trip lines in the hall along with cameras covering every inch of the den’s entrance. The guards must have deactivated them, thinking she was part of the mafia.

In the den itself, the girl went straight to a long couch wrapped around a table, to sit there and wait. It was a dark room with blue lights everywhere, like a night club. There was a well-stocked bar nearby, including a bartender cognition busily at work. On the table itself, there was a gold briefcase sitting among the more mundane things; Third Eye showed it to be a piece of this scenery, albeit an important piece.

“As you heard, the boss is in a meeting right now,” Joker said to finish off the act. “I’ve got other jobs to do; sit tight for now.”

“Got it, tell Junya that I’ll be waiting!” she said, sitting back to relax.

Joker left the den, but waited until she was past the room’s security to slip back into the shadows and take off the shirt. Like the briefcase, it felt like a thing that couldn’t be taken out of the Palace. But it could still be useful, so she put it in her pocket for the time being. She went to an elevator and used the access card to go down further. With the map, she could tell that this elevator wouldn’t get her to the Treasure. She had to get access to a third elevator to get into the deeper subconscious. There were a lot of dummy rooms that were there just to fill out expectations, including bathrooms which offered some potential safe rooms. Without Ace around, she’d have to use her own senses to figure out which rooms were important.

While a few rooms looked potentially interesting, she first made her way down to the third elevator. It was wrapped in steel and black glass, at the bottom of a grand three-story hall with staircases on both sides. There were also a full dozen guards in the room, pacing around or posted at certain junctures. Across from the elevator, there was a door that led to a safe room, if she remembered what Ace said right. To keep the security level low, Joker put the shirt back on before going in to try her card at the elevator. It wasn’t accepted; she moved on to the safe room while trying not to get the guards’ attention.

She took out a soda for a break while reviewing the map. With all the Shadows out in the hall, she’d want to keep using the shirt disguise to get around. But where to go looking for access to the elevator? There was a large staff room on the third floor of this area that had potential. The vault with raining money that they’d walked through was three stories tall, two of which overlapped with this hall. On the second basement floor of this vault area, there was a big kitchen and pantry area. That seemed very strange in a bank, thus it could be worth looking into. This floor had a maze of small offices and meeting rooms. Unless she got information that something was in there, it could be worth skipping.

Once she was ready, she headed out wearing the shirt to get to the staff room first. It was a break area with a view into the money vault. A small bar was here, along with snack and drink machines, a treasure chest with healing items, a nice rest area, another shirt rack, and a couple of computers. On the walls, there were several markerboards filled with notes and information. Some of it was chatter about drugs or Junya’s girls. There was also a chart of important duties, including those who held keys. Upper, mid, and lower elevator… the lower elevator keycard was held by Guard 112. And Guard 112 was currently stationed at the pantry entrance.

There were three dog Shadows on her path up to the kitchen; they weren’t fooled by the shirt. They were all the Orthrus Shadow, which Joker could deal with easily. Along with them, she had to sneak up on and dispatch one of the strong onis as it had been too alert after she’d fought one of the dogs. By the time she got to the kitchen, the guards were on their normal watch. It looked like a regular large-scale kitchen, like what she’d find at school. The head chef wasn’t a normal Shadow nor a cognition. Instead, it was a bulky red cyclops using a huge knife and meat fork to do its work.

At the far end of the kitchen, there were entrances to both a giant fridge and the equally giant pantry. Both entrances were guarded. Near the pantry entrance, there was also a sickly thin man with pale violet skin and a worn business suit. That had to be the demon lurking around. “You are protecting the food, so keep alert,” he said.

“Of course, boss,” the guard said, pounding a fist to his chest.

“I used to think that once I had money, I’d never have to worry about food again,” he said. “I have all the money and food I could want now, but thieves, parasites, and swindlers are constantly after what I have. I cannot lose what I have! I deserve this, not the fools that fill the world.”

“Of course, boss,” the guard said, with less enthusiasm but still agreeing.

“In the end, you’re just another leech. If you want to prove yourself not, then work hard.” The demon then vanished.

Joker waited a moment, then approached the guard. “Hey, I got an errand to run; I need the lime.”

“No one can take food!” the guard replied. “Other than the boss and the chef.”

Shaking her head, she sighed and said, “I know that, fool. I’m headed to the lower elevator and signed off for it already. I need the key lime, if you get what I’m saying.”

“Oh, right, right, sorry,” he said, reaching in a coat pocket to hand over a keycard. “Return it to me or the head guard once your errand is done.”

“Obviously,” she said, accepting the keycard to put in her own pocket.

When she turned around, the demon was standing in the doorway. “Now aren’t you clever?” he said, smirking at her. “Are you here after the money?”

“No,” Joker said.

“You’re probably lying, but we’ll see the truth in time,” he said. “And whether you lie or speak the truth, you don’t belong here. I’ll play you fair, though.” The demon snapped his fingers. “Prove your strength.”

The cyclops chef roared in anger, slamming his meat fork into the counter. Joker spun around to face it. As this was a kitchen, there were all kinds of pots, pans, and utensils everywhere. She wasn’t sure how strong it was relative to her, since she hadn’t seen it as a generic Shadow with a color-coded aura. And this would be trial and error with her abilities since she was on her own. Despite all that, she felt that she could do this. She fired her gun at it first; it wasn’t affected, but maybe if she took care to aim…

It responded by creating an explosion of fire around itself. The pantry and fridge guards finally reacted, screaming and heading out of the room as fast as they could. While she could feel the power of the explosion, she had Arsene active and didn’t feel it as bad. The cyclops took a deep breath after the explosion, giving her time to fire at its eye. There was an unpleasant pop and burst of blood, causing the cyclops to shriek and cover its damaged eye in vain. As it lunged and thrashed around with its knife in trying to find her, Joker switched to Matador to cast Sukukaja. That got her near the door. She then used Magaru, hoping it’d do what she wanted.

The cyclops continued thrashing about, pounding the ground hard enough to rattle her whole body. But that and the Magaru caused the pots and pans on the hanging rack to fly off; a good portion of them hit the cyclops. Turning towards the door, it started to head her way blindly. Matador was her Persona, so… she thought that he should go around and attack the chef from the other side. That worked well, doing some damage and directing the blinded cyclops away from her. Switching Personas again, she sent Sui-ki to cast Bufula at the cyclops. That wasn’t its weakness; neither was a Zio. She tried Frei next and ended up destroying the cyclops chef before figuring out what was effective besides shooting it in the eye.

“It seems you do have some power,” the demon said, coming out from the doorway to be in her view. When he clapped his hands, the kitchen was restored back to its original condition. Including the chef, who merrily went back to cooking. The guards in back came out warily, unsure but soon relaxing on seeing things as normal.

“An unsatisfying victory, but a victory nevertheless,” Joker said, twirling her gun around before putting it away.

As she thought, that impressed the demon enough that he chuckled. “Well you made it this far on your own, quite impressive. I could use that kind of power well, and reward you even better. You could go back up to meet with the Shadow. Or perhaps, keep going the way you seem to intend. The Shadow would certainly boast if he saw you, so confidant is he in his bank’s defenses. While they are exquisite, if you truly have power, you’ll find me in time. And those with power, of any sort, deserve to be on top.” He bowed before vanishing.

It sounded good, but that kind of thinking led to people like Kaneshiro and his mafia. She would just have to dissuade him without angering him as she had for the other demons. Leaving the shirt on to continue being ignored, Joker went back to the lower elevator to get closer to the Treasure. How far could she go? And how would Ace react if she did make it to the Treasure today? She got worried about being useless when she wasn’t. This could make those worries worse.

In the elevator itself, the dark glass turned out to be one-way. Someone in here could see everyone out in the grand hall. As it descended, she could look over the innermost vault area too. Instead of having personal vaults all in neat rows to make the most of the space, this bank put its vaults in concentric rings that each had a gap. The outermost ring was being rotated as the elevator approached, turning so that the gap was blocked off from her. But if they could be rotated, there would be a way to build a clear path straight to the central area, where a large golden pig stood on a circular platform. It wasn’t the Treasure because it was materialized. Because she was on her own, Joker couldn’t be sure of where the Treasure was unless she saw it. But that central platform seemed more suspicious than the thousands of small vaults that made up this strange mechanism.

There was another safe room right next to the elevator here, good news because they could bypass most of the basements. Joker took claim of it, then examined the small area she could access. There was a glass walkway where the path to the center should emerge. Next to it, there was a computer panel to enter a password. A plaque on it said ‘GOLD’. However, there was a small keyhole that locked the numberpad. She got zapped when she tried to pick it; it probably required a key with a computer chip in it. A paper note on the panel said that a back-up key was located in sub-basement A, the entrance to which seemed to be nearby.

The map gave no images for this area. From what Joker could see past the staircase, the sub-basement was strangely laid out. Rooms full of lasers and iron shelves, tall narrow halls, raised and lowered floors at odd points; it was strange but from higher vantage points, she could see ways to get around. The shelves were cognitive filler and obstacles. But in odd corners and dead-ends, she found metal piggy banks that operated like the statue at the entrance. Pressing their snouts in let her claim some little treasures, including the panel key.

Back in the ring vaults, she put the key in the panel and tried ‘6070’. There were a few numbers that could be used for the ‘D’, but ‘0’ turned out to be right. Through the glass floor, she could see a large shaft move in to spin the vaults around. An orange-aura Shadow appeared when the path to the next ring was there. “To go ahead, prove yourself,” it said, then transformed into a horned armless man that attacked with lightning.

It hurt, but she was able to use Pulinpa to get the Shadow panicked. That let Joker heal up and get a couple of buffs on herself before the Shadow recovered and cast more lightning. This time, she could dodge the strike and use her own Agi. She then tried Makoula and hit a weakness. That let her take initiative and defeat the Shadow.

As she passed into the next ring, a man’s voice came out of thin air. “Capitalism is a cruel game. I know that all too well; I had to scrimp and scrounge just to keep a roof over my head, and it wasn’t even my fault! It was some conman who extorted money out of me. But I got my revenge. I stole his position! And I’m not giving it up, not the position and not the gold. I know how to win now, but more importantly, I know how to never lose again.”

Joker rolled her eyes, having seen this before. She moved ahead and confirmed that the panel also had a key locking it. Down some stairs nearby, sub-basement B had a different layout and several patrolling Shadows. But the shelves, platforms, and vent shafts let her get around them to the piggy banks. In them, she was finding a diamond, various other jewels, gold jewelry, and even a couple stacks of yen. The panel key was off in a high alcove that she could only see in one room. Then she had to fight a pair of oni to get into the alcove. The hint was ‘PAIN’, which translated to ‘9412’.

As the shaft came to turn the next vault ring, she went ahead and cast her buffs. There was another orange aura Shadow waiting for her, this time a swordsman in red armor, wielding two blades. It hardly touched the floor the whole battle, clinging to the vaults and bounding around whenever it attacked. Makouka did good damage to it too, letting her win after a couple of casts. While it had hit her with one of his blades (and hit her hard), she was able to take care of the wound with a Diarama. It was going to leave a mark on her arm; she’d have to figure out how to excuse it as it wasn’t a good time of year to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide it.

But she felt like she could continue. As Joker passed through the rings, the demon spoke up for Kaneshiro again. “Any properly thinking person should see straight through our schemes. But their greedy foolishness always gets the best of them! They’ve fallen for our tricks, so they deserve to be treated as fools. However, I’m a generous man. If you’re stressed out over your debts, I’ll give you some drugs to ease your mind. If you can’t pay for that, then I can get you some work. As a hostage, as a drug runner, as a prostitute… I’ll accept any fool and give you what’s best suited for you! Just don’t forget, you owe me money and you will pay. Or your family will pay, or your life will be mine. Don’t worry, I’ll enjoy all the pain and suffering you go through so that it is worth something.”

He definitely deserved to have his Treasure stolen. As she walked down the stairs to the third sub-basement for another key, she spotted bloody hand prints and streaks on the walls. Another turn and those were joined by disturbing photos of people ruthlessly beaten, drugged out of their senses, being raped, chained up in windowless cells… even if she kept her eyes off those photos, the cells showed up here, crammed with moaning and crying faceless victims. They begged the Shadows to release them, throwing coins out of the bars. However, the Shadows collected the coins, banged on the bars, and laughed at the prisoners. And this was all cognitive illusions, either his imagination or his memories creating this horror that she could do nothing about right now. Joker did her best to remain unseen while moving quickly, to grab the key and get out of there.

The next passcode was ‘HUGE’. She first tried ‘8763’, being certain of the last two, unsure of the second, and fairly sure on the first. As it was rejected, she had to fight fight off one of the armless Shadow again. Joker then tried ‘8263’. That got accepted; she prepared herself and found a yellow-aura Shadow waiting her. It turned into the four onis that she’d fought regularly through this Palace, the plain red Oni, Fuu-ki, Sui-ki, and Kin-ki. It would have been nice to have some back-up, but she took them out on her own.

This time, Kaneshiro sounded anxious rather than smug. “I need to have a huge presence! I need to always have plenty of money at hand, to always have food available no matter what happens. That way, I never have to go back to a life unable to live from paycheck to paycheck despite working all hours of the day! That’s what living an honest life gets you, I’ve learned from that mistake. I need to be a huge figure in everyone’s life, looming over them endlessly so that they get in line and pay up. Those politicians are so lucky, getting all the tax money for sitting around on their butts arguing all the time. At least I get to make the world suffer as it forced me to suffer before.”

There were no more sub-basements this time. Instead, Joker had to shift the inner two layers back and forth with some levers until they too lined up with the glass walkway. That finally let her in to the center area where the giant golden pig was. As she thought, there was yet another elevator underneath the pig’s rear opposite the walkway. The Treasure should be past this. But then, so would the demon. They hadn’t been violent on their own so far. But given what others said, that could change.

Joker headed down, to make sure of the Treasure’s location.


	57. temptation::bael

6/20

There was a massive room beneath the ring vaults, one that could have held the visible bank atop this floating island. Strange machinery could be seen in the walls: gears turning each other, shafts moving things around, pipes releasing steam that added to the iridescent mists of the deep subconscious. However, there wasn’t anything in the room itself. There was the Treasure, a dark hazy orb that wasn’t anything yet. She would have expected some cognitive gold or money inside. Perhaps his Treasure was enough for this dramatic setting.

A huge presence… this room could hold a huge Shadow, and the machinery could turn out to do something other than keep the bank flying. As she considered that, the thin version of Kaneshiro appeared nearby. “Well done in making it to the deepest location,” he said. When he transformed, though, it wasn’t to a version of her. It was to an ancient god, like an ideal man wearing ornate golden jewelry along with a presence of power and majesty. “You are the leader of the Phantom Thieves, Joker, correct? I am Bael and I hope that you can help me escape being bound to this scoundrel.”

“Can’t you just leave?” Joker asked.

Bael shook his head. “Not with the world as it is. If I want to have any presence in the world, it must be through a human soul. Kaneshiro seemed promising at first. He was driven to rise above oppression and gained power quickly, enough to earn my attention. But he has squandered his opportunities and does not rule. He has accepted being just a thug in the shadows, hoarding all he can and scrambling for more. I seek a powerful leader like myself to assist in changing the world. From the light of your soul, you could be that leader.”

“I’d rather change the world on my terms,” she said.

“As you should,” he said. “But I can help you influence others on a metaphysical level in more ways than you have now.”

“What I’ve got is useful,” Joker said. “What do you really have to offer me?”

Smiling confidently, Bael came closer and said, “I know how to truly change the world. And I’m sure you knew upon seeing this form that I am a god of the ancient world. I can give you that kind of brilliant aura too, letting people know on a subconscious level that you are an important and powerful person. Kaneshiro has such an aura now, but he hides himself away and takes no risks. With a bright aura, people will be eager to follow you.”

“Much of my work is done by keeping people from noticing me,” she said.

“We can work with that,” Bael said. “Controlling the attention of others is a valuable skill. I will grant you the power and knowledge needed to change the world; I simply want to be with someone who will actively make use of my blessings. Being with a cruel fly like this is suffocating. What do you say? Will you work with me instead?”

Instead? That could be important, or misleading. Joker shook her head. “You make an interesting offer, but I feel like I can do much more with what I have. I want to see what I can do.”

“An admirable sentiment, if tainted by the vanity of humanity,” he said. “But I’ll leave my offer open for the time when you hit your limits. Since you want to obscure your identity, I can give you a little blessing to that end now to show my goodwill. I look forward to seeing what chaos you sow.” Bael then vanished, not even showing himself as the young Kaneshiro again.

Maybe it was a vanity of demons to underestimate humans. Well, she’d made it to the Treasure. Joker felt like it wouldn’t be a good time to do some training. She was on her own, those nasty images were still in her mind, and she didn’t want the cut to get worse with another injury. Getting her phone, she replied to Ace’s message. ‘I made it to the Treasure, but have to leave now. I’ll be waiting in Untouchable for you.’ It got sent, so she retreated to get to the safe room on the previous floor. She could just use a Goh-m, but then it’d be more trouble to check into the Velvet Room.

Igor was gone again. “Where does he even go?” Chou asked after greeting the twins.

“That’s none of your business, inmate,” Caroline said. “None of ours either.”

“We did find some information on the stationary box you found,” Justine said, ignoring that for now. “It belongs to another resident of the Velvet Room, a demon artist named Felix. However, we’ve not met Felix ourselves.”

“We did locate him in Mementos,” Caroline said. “But as wardens, we can’t leave our station here. For you as someone who can explore Mementos, it’s going to be quite a stunt to find him.”

“How’s that?” Chou asked.

“He’s in an area called Kaldabash, which isn’t on the main branch from Shibuya,” Caroline explained. “But we couldn't figure out which station in Tokyo would get you into Kaldabash. Theoretically, you could reach Kaldabash from Ayuutsbus, the second stretch of Mementos from Shibuya’s entrance. But you’d have to locate the Reaper’s Switch that changes the rails into side tunnels between upper areas.”

“The Reaper’s Switch can appear randomly on any qualified level,” Justine went on. “We can give you a key to make the Switch more likely to appear. However, if you bear such a key in the halls of Mementos, the Reaper will actively hunt you down.”

Caroline nodded “Yeah, and the Reaper is serious business. In your weak state, he can end you like popping a bubble, just snap,” she snapped her fingers, “and you’re dead. Wanting to return that box is a nice gesture, but one that could get you killed before you realize it.”

“Is there anything we can do to avoid the Reaper?” Chou asked.

“If you keep running, you might just make it by him,” Caroline said. “But make a wrong turn right into him and it’s over.”

“It would be an unsatisfying end to your rehabilitation, so we must advise against it,” Justine said, looking at her clipboard. “Although, there are things that a demon artist can do that those in charge of executions and fusions like us cannot.”

“Like what?” she asked. This Reaper’s Switch business sounded dangerous. But at the same time, it also sounded like a wild and thrilling challenge.

After flipping a page, Justine said, “A demon artist can help a person in summoning a new Persona or giving an old one an alternate form. The new form might be cosmetic only, or it may be with entirely different powers. One could also alter the costume you use with different passive abilities or different aesthetics.”

“I could make use of someone with that kind of talent,” Chou said.

“With some cleverness, I’m sure the assistance of a demon artist would be a valuable assent,” Justine said, looking back to her. “But is it one worth risking the lives of you and your partner for?”

“But my partner can turn into a motorcycle,” she pointed out. “If we just need to outrun the Reaper, we could make use of the Reaper’s Switch to return the box to Felix.”

“A-are you sure of that?” Caroline asked in shock. Even Justine looked concerned. “This isn’t like some game you can restart. This is a one-shot to get it right or you’re dead meat.”

“You should at least consult your partner with the dangers before attempting this,” Justine said. “We won’t hand over the key to the Reaper’s Switch without both of you acknowledging the risk and accepting the consequences.”

“We’ll talk about it, I promise,” Chou said. “For now, I want to do some executions.”

With the Personas she had now, she figured out a way to get the Ame-no-Uzume that the twins wanted, from one of the oni that she’d been using. Unfortunately, they didn’t think she could control Uzume yet. That was fine. It’d be another goalpost like Matador. She did end up having to fuse Matador as he was no longer the strongest Persona she had and there was stronger one that she could get from him. But it was like they’d said at the beginning: these Personas were all aspects of herself, things she could change, new ideas she could pursue. Still, Arsene kept his identity as always, getting a strong boost from the Queen’s Necklace that she’d acquired. He was now her strongest again, now with Agilao and Bufula in his repertoire.

And the twins were again baffled at his development. “This Persona should have far too many skills,” Justine said, showing the paper to her sister.

“Hey, what kind of cheating are you doing to make Arsene like this?!” Caroline asked her.

“I dunno,” Chou said.

“We are not cheating,” Arsene said with certainty, appearing the cell with her. He gestured to the clipboard. “Take another look: I merely made another column to put Enduring Will, Item Shift, and Third Eye together.”

“That shouldn’t be possible without cheating!” Caroline said, banging her baton into the bars at Arsene. He just cackled at her.

“At least he’s putting his passive skills in this third column,” Justine said. “It is orderly. But, how do you have Third Eye? The Master said that he was going to revoke that because the Confidant Link to him got broken.”

“That has been there for a long time,” Arsene said.

“I certainly hope Third Eye doesn’t get revoked,” Chou said. “I use that sense every day, for all kinds of things. If Igor wants me to keep playing this Game of his, I need to keep Third Eye.”

“As long as you’re making good use of it, and Arsene with it, we can’t do anything about it,” Justine said. “Did you have any other executions to perform?”

“Not for now, but I’m sure I’ll be back,” Chou said. “See you later.”

“Yes, later then,” Justine said.

“Do you have to be informal about this?” Caroline asked, although she didn’t seem to mind as much. “Whatever, behave yourself out there.”

Back in her regular clothes and in the normal world, Chou could see the cut on her arm better. It was a couple inches long but not that deep. On top of that, it was pale around the dried blood like it already had some time to heal. That could come across as strange to anyone who realized that she didn’t have this cut earlier today. Maybe Iwai knew something to help. She went into the shop to wait.

He noticed her arm right away. “What happened to you?” he asked.

“I got separated from my partner and got attacked by a Rakshasa,” she said calmly. “And others, but that’s the one that got me like this. I need to wait on her; do you mind if I hang out here?”

Iwai shrugged. “Ain’t no one else in here, so fine. But come here. Even if you got it cleared up with healing magic, it could still get infected.”

“Alright,” she said, coming behind the counter.

He brought out one of the first aide kits to get an alcohol cleaning pad. “This is gonna sting, so brace yourself,” he said, tugging her over to where he had some better light. After cleaning the wound and giving it a look over, he got the healing salve to dress the wound. “Keep it clean and covered for a few days. I can believe this was from a Rakshasa; they are tough demons to face, likely the same in that Shadow form you face. They usually have well-kept blades without poison, so you should be okay.” He then had her cover the wound in gauze, then a cloth bandage to make sure she could do that on her own.

“Thanks,” she said once she had it secure. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain it to anyone who noticed.”

“Don’t give details,” Iwai suggested. “It’ll be easier to not contradict yourself if you only say it was an accident. Since you have to wait, want to work on that model some more?”

“Sure, I just hope it isn’t long,” Chou said, retrieving her box from a shelf to work on.

* * *

Watching the flickers on the screen, Ace tried to shift to a layer where she could better see what was going on in that meeting room. There was some resistance to the shift… a force of time? Ace willed it to work, like using a spell. Then she saw who else was in the meeting with Kaneshiro: a human dressed entirely in black, with a fully enclosed black helmet and a long scarf trailing down their back. So that was Ultrablack… and they were on some layer of the Metaverse where time flowed normally.

Then she couldn’t get back to Joker because the moment she was in was already gone. Maybe she could send a message to the computer she had been at? Ace brought up a messaging program she’d noticed and typed something up.

Meanwhile, the meeting progressed. “What brings you in here this time, Ultrablack?” Kaneshiro’s Shadow asked, ready for business. “I haven’t made put up a bounty that you can take care of lately.”

“I’m looking into the actions of the Phantom Thieves,” the visitor said. “A tip I got suggested that they might attempt to target you next.”

Shadow Kaneshiro laughed at that. “Would they? They won’t make much progress here; my defenses are impregnable! And that’s if they even make it up here. One needs a full name for the Metaverse, don’t they?”

“True,” they said. Meanwhile, Ace paused before sending the message, tapping into her magic with the hope that the message arrived.

“Then there is little to fear because few people know my name,” Kaneshiro boasted.

Immediately after Ace sent off her message, she got a reply from Joker. ‘I made it to the Treasure, but have to leave now. I’ll be waiting in Untouchable for you.’ So her feelings about the time here were right. And that was so like Joker to already have located the Treasure; Ace felt proud of her.

The meeting was continuing on the screen. Shadow Kaneshiro then said, “But you still felt you had to look into this?”

The human in the room nodded. “It was a questionable tip, something overheard in the overpass that may have been a misunderstanding. But it may not have been. On that chance, I wanted to check just in case. Has there been any disturbances here in your bank?”

“No, nothing out of the ordinary,” Shadow Kaneshiro said. “Nothing has gone missing, there’s been no disturbances. But to help you out, I’ll keep alert to things.”

He didn’t think their entry with Jack was out of the ordinary? That was some good fortune, if odd. But he might notice whatever Joker had done today. Ultrablack’s words were interesting; their voice was distorted and Ace couldn’t tell much about them through the screen. However, that tip was a big tip-off on who they were getting information from.

“That would be good,” Ultrablack said. “Do you have any information on the Phantom Thieves?”

“Not at this time; it hasn’t seemed important beyond what the general public gossips about. But if you’d like, I can send my men out to do some investigating too. We have resources that you wouldn’t.”

“Perhaps. Councilman Shido has been concerned about their actions. I’m surprised he hasn’t contacted you about it yet.”

Kaneshiro shook his head. “His people asked my people about some related things, but as I said, it didn’t seem important to us.”

“They’ve been targeting people of power who take advantage of others.” Ultrablack then pointed across the table. “To me, you seem like a juicy target for the Phantom Thieves if they can figure out your name. Other signs have clued me in that you’re potentially in range of their capabilities. You’re not the only possible target at this time, but the probability is high. You should be taking this seriously.”

“Your information has allowed me to make my Palace so well guarded,” Kaneshiro replied. If this was making him nervous, the Shadow was hiding it well. “But if you believe all that, I’ll start investigating and keep on guard. I should send any information on the Phantom Thieves I get to Councilman Shido then?”

“Yes, that would help,” he said. “Since there’s no problems here, I’ll be leaving you to that.” He then took out a phone and exited the Metaverse.

“Should we increase security around the bank, boss?” one of the gaudily dressed cognitions asked.

Kaneshiro’s Shadow shook his head. “There’s no need. These thieves would need a name they can’t get. And if they somehow get my name, they can’t get in here without being seen. I’ll just let my conscious self know to search out this information; Shido is a valuable associate that we cannot lose.”

“So that’s how it is, huh?” Ace asked quietly. “The agent is worrisome, but this mission is going to go off swimmingly.” She gave a quick check around before going to post the map back on the wall. That should let her escape with little to tell that she’d been there.

Back in reality, Morgana glanced around the alleyway. There was no one around to notice even though a few minutes had passed. She then hopped up to grab the knob to get into Untouchable. “I’m back!” she said as the door shut behind her.

“Good timing,” the shop owner said, then looked over at Chou behind the counter with him. “You really should get home now.”

Chou yawned, then nodded. “Yeah, sorry, didn’t realize how tired I was. Thanks again, Iwai.”

“Keep yourself out of trouble, alright?” he said, letting her out.

As she got into the bag, she noticed the bandage on Chou’s right arm. She waited until they were heading out to ask, “What happened to your arm?”

“Got hit by a sword,” she answered. “There were several tough fights I had to take on my own. I missed having you around; you’re pretty good at sniffing out vulnerabilities and my exploration was better when we could talk.”

“You’re better at taking advantage of the vulnerabilities,” Morgana said. “And you must’ve done an amazing job to get all the way to the Treasure already! That means we can take it as soon as we like. Well, we could, but there’s some trouble that we need to discuss.”

She nodded. “Got it,” she said quietly, since she was entering the crowd of Shibuya’s Central Street. “But it might have to wait until tomorrow. Once I sat down in there, I just felt exhausted.”

“Right, you should get to sleep early,” Morgana said. The sun was trying to show through the rain still. While there was plenty of time left to the day, she had to take care of her partner.

“Sure…” A minute later, she slowed with her attention ahead.

Morgana poked her head out of the bag, trying to pick out what she noticed in this sensory noise. “Something up?”

“Akechi is ahead,” Chou said quietly.

Standing up further, she noticed the boy with shaggy brown hair paused in a doorway. That was the entrance close to that walkway. Once he was done with his phone, he started heading their way. Chou moved to get into the crowd better, keeping her aura low. Doing the same, Morgana ducked into the bag. Akechi was a Persona user, so she could sense him walk by a few feet away. He didn’t notice them.

“That was close,” Chou said, moving towards the stairs now.

“Yeah, I’m glad we got away,” Morgana said, settling in a little. She had to share the bag with all the things Chou needed through the day, but it wasn’t that bad. A lot of things she had sorted in the side pockets and her school work was all in binders with cloth covers. And she always made sure there was plenty of room for Morgana, with her change of clothes if needed.

Then someone nearby said, “Chou? What happened to you?”

Who could notice them when they were both downplaying their presence?

* * *

Lately, people had been saying that Shibuya was dangerous. But if you used the trains to get around Tokyo, it was hard to avoid the neighborhood. The crowds were still on the same level, if more nervous and guarded than usual. It was by chance that Yuuki spotted Chou in the crowd, looking really tired for the early evening and with a bandage wrapped around her arm. She kept saying that she was doing something for a job, but never what she was doing.

“Chou?” he called to get her attention. She stiffened as if not expecting to be spotted. “What happened to you?” he asked, hurrying ahead to get her in her sight.

On realizing who he was, she relaxed. “It was an accident, nothing to worry about.”

Was it really? Yuuki could remember saying the same kind of thing to people in the past when he was covering up for really bad things. But then, she was tired and it was the first time she had an injury like that. “If you say so. Want me to come along? I could keep people from bothering you.”

“Sure, that would help,” she said. “I’m just going back to Yongen-Jaya.”

“Yeah, you should probably take it easy this evening,” he said. Knowing that she was a part of the Phan-Site, he tried bringing up a topic there once they got seats on the train. “Oh, did you see the newest hot topic on the Phan-Site? People have been comparing dreams and trying to figure out how many members there are in the Phantom Thieves.”

“No, I haven’t seen that one yet,” she said, setting her bag on her lap and checking inside. A black ear briefly appeared, but her cat remained hidden.

“Well we’re sure now that the leader is called Joker,” Yuuki recounted. “Several of us remember someone called Ace too, some kind of shadowy ninja type that appears and disappears at will.”

There was a meow from Chou’s bag. “Shh,” she said, although she was smiling at it. “Shadowy ninjas are cool.”

“Yeah, and a perfect fit for one of them,” he said. “There’s also talk from a few people of a member who’s big and brawny, but fights with some kind of whip or belt; we think he’s called King, so there seems to be some kind of card theme going on with them.”

“Hmm…” Chou seemed to be thinking of something while her cat meowed again. Then she looked over. “Hey, you remember how I got targeted by them falsely? I remember one of them being called Jack.”

“Really?” He took out his phone to check, but he was pretty sure… “That’s a new one, although there’s some figures that people recall that don’t fit with the rest. What’s Jack like?”

“He had a gun,” she said after a moment. “And it seemed like he was only using that.”

He found the topic, but didn’t find mention of a Jack yet. “You might want to post about it so more people see the info. Then that’s four names that people remember from dreams, and we can guess from the theme that there’s probably a member named Queen around.”

“So five members?” Chou asked.

“That sounds right,” he said. Maybe he could impress her, since she was interested. “Actually, they’ve called me into their operations several times. My Persona seems to have powers that are valuable to them. They’re really chaotic dreams; sometimes I only remember a line somebody said or brief images of supernatural battles. I’m hoping they make me a regular member instead of just an extra. Oh, but you can’t talk about this, even on the Phan-Site.”

“Wouldn’t you get in trouble if that got know widely?” she asked, worried about him. “Especially if you did join them.”

But worrying meant she cared, right? But was that as a friend or as something more? “I suppose I would. I don’t know how they’re not getting caught, but I’d be in a lot of trouble if I got caught.” Scratching his head, he quietly added, “One thing I remember clearly is something Joker said. He said that as long as I’m a dreamer when they call me, then I can’t be held accountable for what they do. But if he feels like that, why does he have a group with him? He could just work alone if he doesn’t want to get others in trouble with his quest to steal the hearts of sinners. But if he has others helping him, why doesn’t he make me one of them? I do have valuable skills thanks to my Persona Beholder; in dreams, Beholder can let me access all kinds of information about others and my surroundings.”

“That’s another of their mysteries, I guess,” Chou said, listening although she sounded tired again. “It makes them really interesting and I love solving mysteries. But then again, if solving their mysteries gets them in trouble with people like Akechi who want to arrest them, is the discovery worth risking their work?”

“Uh, I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” Yuuki said. He wanted to be a part of something important and world-changing, as the Phantom Thieves would surely be. But as their notoriety grew, the risk of being discovered surely grew just the same.

“But then that makes it hard to think of how to support them aside from sharing our stories,” she said.

He nodded. “It does. We could keep showing our support on the Phan-Site; surely they would keep an eye on that too. And, if we could prove that their actions in our school were supernatural in nature, would it really matter if we figured out how they did it exactly? Like, we could rule out any ordinary means of shutting off the school’s power as they did. Being able to show that would make people more impressed with the Phantom Thieves, instead of assuming they’re some fad.”

“Proving that wouldn’t make it any easier to identify them,” Chou said, then yawned. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry if I’m bothering you when you just wanted to rest,” Yuuki said. “But that does give me some ideas to suggest to the club tomorrow, so thanks. Still, what did you do to get you this exhausted so soon after school?”

“I was up way too late last night reading,” she admitted, then shifted her bandaged arm. “Probably what caused this too. But it was a really good book.”

“I can get that way when I’m on a computer too,” he said. “We just can’t do that too often; it leads to trouble.”

“Yeah,” Chou said, trying to keep from yawning again.

She wasn’t fully alert as they walked out of the Yongen-Jaya station, but she seemed familiar enough with her path home. Maybe when she was more alert, she’d be more grateful and positive to him. At the very least, it was just reciprocating when she’d done the same for him. But did she like him just as a friend still? He’d have to find some way to change her mind on that.

Inside the cafe, she thanked him quietly, waved to her guardian behind the counter, and went right upstairs. “What’s up with her?” her asked, rubbing his chin.

“She’s just really tired from reading too late,” Yuuki said. “Apparently injured herself too; I found her in Shibuya and decided to take her back here. She did the same for me once.”

He thought some more, then smiled a bit. “Well thanks for that. I’ll talk to her in the morning about this. Mind if I treat you to a cup of coffee? Just this once.”

“Sure, thank you,” he said, taking a seat at the counter. This place smelled really good. From all the equipment and bean jars around, this place took their coffee seriously. “Oh yeah, I’m Yuuki Mishima; we’re in the same class.”

“I’m Sojiro Sakura,” he introduced himself “I run this place, pretty much.”

Sojiro didn’t talk much, but he certainly made an excellent cup of coffee.

* * *

Once upstairs in their room, Chou changed to her bed clothes and was soon asleep. Morgana wasn’t quite ready to sleep; she got up on the window seat and tugged one of the window panels aside. It wasn’t raining now, so it’d be nice to let some fresh air in this place. Sitting there, she thought over the day’s exploration of the Palace. At least, what she’d gotten to do. Chou must’ve been in the Palace itself much longer than her, in the near frozen instant that got them into the Metaverse.

Was that strange? Ultrablack was in the Metaverse with time flowing normally. As things stood, Joker and Ultrablack would never meet within the Metaverse. But Ace could potentially meet with him, if she wanted to take the risk and had the opportunity. Chou mentioned that she took the role of the Trickster Joker to participate in some Game run by a mysterious Master, as a means to eventually take revenge on Shido for ruining her life. Chances were high that Ultrablack was another player of this Game. If that was so, why were they playing under different rules? And what was her role in all this?

She had been Joker’s mentor, but Joker now surpassed her. She could fight on her own while Ace might still get stuck on things like those stairs in Kamoshida’s Palace that only reacted to Joker. Just today, Joker cleared about two-thirds of a Palace all on her own! They had a pretty good thing going in the first third of the Palace, though. When she’d been on her own, Morgana had used her senses to support herself. It had worked out, for the most part. She just wasn’t powerful enough in a fight to keep up with Joker. What did she do now?

Looking back down at Chou, Morgana felt proud for her. It was a great accomplishment. But, what now? Was there some way she could do the kind of support that they usually called on Yuuki for? She could sniff out vulnerabilities and resistances, along with other tactical information. That is, if she wasn’t being harassed by Shadows. Joker would have the attention of the Shadows she fought, and they had those earphone things that let them communicate even apart. Yuuki was quicker at analysis. But like they’d discussed earlier, making Yuuki one of their group put him at risk when he wasn’t involved in this game of the supernatural. While he seemed earnest, Morgana had a hunch that they’d have a harder time keeping secret identities when it was more than just the two of them. Iwai would be able to keep secrets, but he’d already declined a permanent position.

But this idea that the Phantom Thieves were greater in numbers was interesting. It sounded like a great red herring that was already being fabricated by their fans. Once Chou could add the tip about Jack, the idea would build strength. Then, what could they do to add onto this idea with the dreamers and targets?

And what should she focus on to be a better support to Joker?


	58. Dead Ends

???

In the moment that Chou realized she was dreaming, she wondered who might’ve called her here. Or where here was; it was a hall of concrete floor and metal walls, no windows or anything to orient herself with. There ought to be something here. At least, it felt that way.

She took a few step forwards and things appeared. Terrible things: bloody hand prints and streaks, disgusting photos of rape, murder, torture, blackmail, terrible things she’d not thought of before. Memories flooded back of the sins she’d forced others to face in order to cut through their distorted hearts. How could people be so awful to each other? She wanted to close her eyes to it and dream of somewhere else. However, she was going to have to see all this again soon, wasn’t she? She was going to steal Kaneshiro’s Treasure and then she’d see his sins through the eyes of his victims.

Chou continued ahead, hoping she could get past these memories too. The thing to do was to confront Kaneshiro and make sure she had the rest of the day open to clear her mind of what she’d end up seeing. Perhaps early in the day… no, not before school, she wouldn’t be able to focus on classes with this in mind. She didn’t have a day off soon and it was only Monday. Or was it already Tuesday? Either way, she’d rather stop Kaneshiro as soon as possible. They needed a day to prepare the calling cards and make their plans, and her injury could use a day or two to heal up. She already had plans to be at occult club Tuesday; she should probably be there Saturday too to practice with the festival volunteers. And she had another trial with Takemi Friday, though that might be the end of that. So then… Thursday for stealing the Treasure? Or Sunday if Thursday didn’t work out.

A break in the walls caught her eye; there was a barred cell like those in the Palace. Chou nearly looked away to keep moving on, but there was only one body in there… with blond hair? Bleached blond hair. She stopped and crouched down, realizing that it was Ryuji in there, dead with splatters of blood around him. A gunshot? Her blood went cold at the sight. Why was she dreaming of him like this?

Then she noticed something else: the brightly colored tacky shirt that was ripped across his back. Ryuji did like bright colors, but not quite that style. That was like the mafia thugs. But he wasn’t involved with them. Right?

Then an unfamiliar boy spoke up, seemingly over her shoulder. “Kamoshida finally got Ryuji kicked out of school. It left him angrier than before, frustrated at his inability to do anything right. Not wanting to be a burden on his mother, Ryuji sought out work. But the stigma of being a delinquent and high school drop-out made things difficult; he got caught up in Kaneshiro’s mechanisms and tried to fight back. That ended up with him imprisoned and then killed for what the mafia deemed betrayal. Another dead end, another person lost to a distorted world.”

Although Chou had looked right at where the voice came from, she didn’t see anyone. But the words had a ring of truth to Third Eye. Meaning, this was a time that could have been, but wasn’t. She was glad this wasn’t about to happen. At least, not to Ryuji. It could happen to anyone else trapped by the mafia. It had happened to Itachi and was why he’d asked them to take care of Kaneshiro too. That was another reason to do this once they were able.

The cell was falling apart as Chou stood back up. The metal walls fell as well, getting rid of the photos and most of the blood. However, the scene that she was left standing in wasn’t much better. There were two rooms on either side of the concrete hall. The room on her right resembled a morgue; Shiho was on an examination table there, in a hospital gown. The room on her left was a pretty bedroom, except for the corpse of Ann hanging from the ceiling. And thanks to the things she’d seen in Kaneshiro’s Palace, it was an uncomfortably realistic scene.

A faint image moved ahead of her, visible like the barest hint of mist. And when that boy spoke up again, it was from the now vanished image. “Cornered and raped by Kamoshida, bullied and disbelieved by everyone left in school, Ann took her own life. And without the support of her dearest friend, Shiho gave up. Perhaps Ann’s words coaxed her awake in what truly happened. This is merely another dead end, more lost to distortion.”

“What did Ann wake her from?” Chou asked.

The air rippled in an unnerving way; it felt like it could erase her. “Don’t heed the paradoxes,” Arsene said in her mind. “Paying attention to them gives them power, especially in a place like this.”

“Where is this then?” Chou asked as the rooms with both Ann and Shiho departed into darkness. “It’s a dream.”

“That’s one way to understand it,” he said.

Before he could explain (if he intended to explain), the concrete hall retracted itself to a square, then spread out a perpendicular to its previous route. Buildings sprouted up around her, quickly settling into an alleyway in Shibuya. There was another body here, this time Yusuke. He had been unhealthily thin when Chou had met him; this was much worse, his dirty skin clinging to bone. On the walls nearby, there was some drawings that he’d tried to do. They were unfinished and disturbing, attempts to depict despair when his life was fading.

The faint image reappeared again; he seemed like a boy her age in a school uniform. This time, he was crouched by the body. “As talented as he was, Yusuke was still a risk of revealing Madarame’s secrets. He was also no longer useful as a chain of guilt to other students. Yusuke crumbled in depression and loneliness; Madarame cast him out, leaving him to die of starvation when he was least able to stand on his own. Another dead end, another soul lost to distortion.” The image vanished while he was speaking.

“Ryuji’s scene was weird, but this could have all happened,” Chou said. “It didn’t because of what I did. But you’re talking like this distortion connects everything.”

“Does it?” the boy asked. His image was further down the alleyway.

Moving around Yusuke’s body, Chou went after the image. “Does it?” she asked back.

“Let’s see…”

The body disappeared as the walls shuffled around. Once it was done, they were back inside. The room was a dressing room this time, more permanent than the one Chou saw at Ann’s show. There was a woman’s body amid the disarray: a broken mirror, chairs knocked over, an open bottle of nail polish spilled, a bloody crowbar abandoned on the floor, warning tape blocking off the crime scene. There was also a strange black marking on the wall, like some kind of magic circle.

“What does this have to do with anything?” the boy asked, still too faint to identify. “She’s vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen her face before.”

It took a moment for Chou to recognize her too. “Oh, that’s the hostess of that Hottest Meet and Greet show.”

“Her?”

Arsene spoke up in her head then. “Tell him this: After years spent avoiding sexual harassment in her workplace, her attempts to keep out were replied to with violent rape. Even so, she was replaced within the day and everything was hushed up. This is a potential dead end that has perished, lost with its distortion.”

Once Chou related that, the air rippled between her and the boy. “I still don’t see what this has to do with anything I did,” he said. “Although, if I knew her and her killer, I’d do something about it.”

“I don’t know the killer,” Chou said. “But I broke the system of harassment and abuse that would have led to this.”

Even as she spoke, the crime scene undid itself. It reformed into a scene that badly reminded her of the photos from Kaneshiro. Makoto was the victim here, sprawled out on the bed with bloodstained sheets, a visible injection site on her arm, and torn clothing that was far skimpier than anything she’d actually wear. Feeling nauseous at being here, Chou felt like this was definitely something that Arsene had asked her to stop.

The air rippled when the boy started speaking. “Making good on his blackmail, Kaneshiro kidnapped Makoto and drugged her in a brutal sex shop where she was repeatedly raped to get the three million yen he’d demanded. Then he hounded the rest of us to get as much money as he could, in whatever way got the most. This is another dead end, lost to distortion.”

“All of these dead ends should remain lost,” Chou said. “But how is she connected to Kaneshiro?

“You knew the others,” the boy said, puzzled. The air rippled again.

“I know her, but nothing like this,” she said. “We could be in different times, different ways events could play out.”

The air settled down as the awful room fell apart to nothing. “That may be,” the boy said.

When the dream scenery got back together, they were in a dark hazy place. Shadows of things were crammed everywhere, including an impressive computer array with multiple monitors and glowing accents. There was an unfamiliar girl on a futon here; she had long orange hair and pale skin. Like the others, she was dead. An empty pill bottle on a table was the only clear object in here.

The boy knelt by her and said, “Driven by the voices in her head, Futaba turned us in to the police and then killed herself. It’s another dead end, lost to its distortion.”

“I haven’t met her in person yet,” Chou said. This time, there was no rippling of paradox. They understood where they stood.

He put a faint hand on Futaba’s. “I don’t blame her for this dead end. It didn’t happen. Instead, I’ll blame the one who put the voices in her head. And if my hunches are correct, our trap is being sprung even as we speak. We’ll get the name we need.”

“Good, I hope it works,” she said, making him chuckle as the scene shifted again.

When it was together again, the scene was even darker. Chou checked over things with Third Eye and felt like they were in a wealthy penthouse; this place belonged to someone even richer than the Takamaki family. The body here was someone she recognized, though: Haru. Dressed in an ornate kimono and veil that confirmed the wealth here, she looked like she was about to be married. But she was dead, from self inflicted wounds that left red on her white clothes.

He knew her too. “Haru’s fate had been decided before we even met. Her conflicted feelings led her to seek an escape. When those hopes fell apart, she sought a last-minute escape that ended her. Another dead end, lost to a distorted world.”

“This sucks, but I can see it happening,” Chou said. Haru seemed so gentle and sweet, but she had some rebellion under her soft demeanor that manifested in her Persona. How did she get her trust enough to figure this scene out? And then help her escape in their time as well.

“These must have been caused by missing deadlines for stealing Treasures,” the boy said thoughtfully.

“What deadlines?” Chou asked. “I hurried a couple heists up, but never had a set deadline.”

“I suppose our careers as Joker have been different,” he said, his form still indistinct. But then he looked around as the scene undid itself. “Huh, what now?”

This time, the indoors scene flickered as a dying light tried to illuminate things for them. It looked like an office, or maybe a hallway, or perhaps even a meeting room. One thing didn’t change with each shifting moment they could see: Akechi was the death here. His face was cut like something made of glass had shattered near him, while strange circular burns could be seen over the rest of his body. He was also drenched in water, dripping a puddle in the dry room. What in the world had killed him?

The boy didn’t speak up for a bit. “Uh, got any insight?”

“Nope,” Chou said. “I can tell he’s going to be a pain, but I wouldn’t wish death on him.”

“He is a pain, and a bad actor,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish for his death either. Maybe an arrest and exposure of who he really is. We have theories with growing evidence and we know he’s trouble. Don’t trust him.”

Nodding, she said, “He’s a lousy date too, won’t shut up about himself.”

That made him laugh. “I’d believe it.” He messed with his hair a bit. “Man, now I want to see how your story goes.”

“I’d like to see yours and become an even bigger cheater,” she said.

“That would be too easy,” he said as the strange death scene disappeared. Instead, they were in a gray hallway with an oppressive and somber atmosphere. “Although telling you not to trust him might be a bit of cheating too.”

“A very small bit from how suspicious he seems,” she said, glancing around. “What’s with this place?”

He pointed out a door at the end of the hall. “My memory’s hazy, but I should be there. I think… come here.” His image moved ahead.

Following after him, she noted that the door was labeled as an interrogation room. The door seemed like it should be locked, but the boy was able to open it readily. Yet another murder scene appeared before them. In the center of the spartan cell, a boy in Shujin’s winter uniform was slumped over a plain table. His face was eerily like hers, with his blood spattered down from a wound near the top of his head. A gun was under his hand, although the position of his fingers didn’t seem right for having used the gun on himself.

There was a bright flicker that made Chou blink. Then she was in the same room with the boy awake and very much alive. His face looked haggard from pain and lack of sleep; he supported his head with one hand. His other hand rested on the table, trembling and dirty. Despite all that, a triumphant smile appeared. “If that last vision is correct, the trap worked.”

“Not quite,” Arsene said, appearing in the room with them. One of his chains appeared on Chou’s wrist; another was attached to the boy’s hand that was holding his head. “The scene will appear soon, but you have something more to do before the scene appears as you hope it will.”

“All right,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. Chou sat down across from him. “I… I should know what that is…”

“This looks a lot more brutal than my arrest,” Chou said.

“It’s my second,” he said.

“What’d they do to you?”

He pulled one of his sleeves back to show an injection site that hadn’t been cleaned up. “Truth serum.” Doing that made him tremble more, so he put his arm back down to support his head. “Sitting hurts, standing up hurts, using a pen hurts, being grabbed in any manner hurts… then they’re treating me roughly. They won’t let me sleep either, unless I’m asleep now. Otherwise, I’m hallucinating a Persona I executed months ago, and myself as a hot girl somehow.”

Chou shrugged. “A butterfly flapped its wings differently years ago and here I’m looking at myself as a boy. You pull off our look better; I’m still working on that.”

Arsene put a hand on the boy’s head gently. “I told you back then: I’ll be by your side until the time you need me again.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, then looked over at her. “You probably had an easier time with Mom. She sometimes said she wished she had a girl and would sigh at things I’d done, saying that was expected of a boy. And then she’d nag me all the time to do better at school; it didn’t feel worth it to try because of her.”

“I don’t think so,” Chou said. “She was relentless with me, expecting perfection out of anything I did. I couldn’t meet those standards, so I’d hang out with friends and do stuff as long as I could to avoid her. Though I could see that out of her if I’d been a boy.”

“I guess that answers the question of it that would’ve helped, being no,” he said.

Arsene then looked over at Chou. “I was investigating some sources of paradox and came across this. Two different moments, but both an opportune moment to help you both. You need to win your separate Games, to change your fates as well as my own.”

“Games?” the boy asked, looking baffled.

“Weren’t you invited in at your first arrest?” Chou asked, leaning on the table. “From a mysterious voice that came from everywhere and nowhere.”

“Nope,” he said. “This all started when I got dropped into Kamoshida’s Palace with Ryuji.”

Arsene nodded. “She got invited in as a Player from the start. He got pulled in unaware as a game piece for an unseen Player.”

Chou snorted. “Man, fuck your player for not telling you about things.”

“This is all some game?” he asked, perhaps too drugged up at the moment to get properly angry.

“The stage for the game is all of Tokyo,” Arsene said. “The pieces for the game are all who live within Tokyo. At stake is the future of your worlds.”

“And the Game Master is a controlling bastard who gets riled up when things don’t go his way,” she said. “Although I imagine that saying anything more, even what I suspect, would be like you telling me what you know and suspect about Akechi.”

“I guess,” the boy said.

“Can you tell what time she is from?” Arsene asked.

He looked across at her; Chou gave him some time because he was drugged. “You know Haru, but not Futaba… Haru might open up sooner to a girl… you know Kaneshiro. Wearing a summer uniform… late June or early July?”

“Late June,” Chou said. “We just found the room with Kaneshiro’s Treasure.”

“I’m some time ahead of you,” he said, then looked at his blazer’s sleeve. “Obviously. Um…” he seemed to be thinking again.

“And you did succeed at the task of keeping Makoto out of trouble,” Arsene told her. “Well done; I’ll let you have fifteen Personas in your stock.”

“It seems like overkill, but thanks,” Chou said.

“That would’ve been be nice for the summer,” the boy said. “So this warping that’s been happening, what’s that?”

“Paradox since our histories differ,” she answered. “You just have to accept inconsistencies between timelines and ignore paradox.”

He nodded. “It’s not the same, but that’s how it is. My mind’s fuzzy, so I can’t think of details right now. But I think you should know, no matter how popular or powerful you become, be cautious. We’re phantom thieves; our strength is in being phantoms, though it can be hard to enforce that with our teammates.”

“I only have Morgana working with me,” Chou said. “The Game Master won’t allow me more teammates.” This had to be related to the Confidants that got nullified; they were the ones here in the dead ends.

“You’d have an easier time remaining phantoms then,” he said, but then rethought it. “But, some things would be more difficult for just two of you. You have trouble with Kaneshiro’s Palace?”

“Not any more than usual,” she said, then tapped her bandaged arm. “A nasty hit from one Shadow, sure, but I got through.”

“You should make sure the both of you are strong before going in another Palace. Since you have so many Personas available to you, make sure you have a full spread of elements and ailments. Things are going to become more difficult and you two need to prepare more than we did.” He shrugged. “I winged things at points and entered some dangerous territory unprepared. Especially around a month ahead of you. We had some close calls, but the team helped.”

“I want to help Futaba once I figure out how, but I see your point,” Chou said.

“It’s good advice,” Arsene said. “And for you, someone is trying to interfere and cut off a potential future. I will counter them so that twenty is available to you.”

“Personas?” he asked. But Arsene shook his head.

Did he mean the Confidants as represented by Tarot cards? As she wondered that, Chou realized that her cards were in her hand. “No, he’s being cryptic,” she said, bringing up the cards and shuffling through them. By Third Eye, she should notice… yes, one card stood out. She drew it and placed it face up on the table: number twenty, Judgment.

“Judgment?” he asked, squinting. His fingers tapped on the table, although more out of the way his hand was shaking.

Recalling her studies, she put a finger on the card. “This is the time to account for how you have used your gifts, to relate to someone with the authority to judge you. Possibly someone of actual legal authority, or someone of figurative authority who can decide if you need punishment or atonement.”

Arsene nodded. “Taking into account reversed meanings, you’ll need to get the figure of authority to accept the facts of your case. Your story will sound ridiculous to those who haven’t experienced the Metaverse. But if you can’t convince them, it will be you who dies today.”

That seemed to jog his memory. “Oh right… I have to convince her… or else I’m stuck. Or dead.” He seemed worried now.

Taking the card back and twirling it to get his attention, Chou said, “Hey, it’s awful that they shot you up with some so-called truth serum that sounds more like torture than a way to find truth. But it might work in your favor, you know? Because in this situation, you can’t think clearly enough to come up with believable lies. Focus on relating the truth, even if it’s ridiculous to outsiders. It’ll be consistent.”

“That’s a good point,” he said, looking back down at his hand in thought. “I just need to remember, like she said.”

“I’m still here with you, even if you can’t summon me directly,” Arsene said to reassure the boy. Then he turned to her and nodded. “But we ought to leave so he can wake back up for his meeting.”

“All right,” she said. But what should she leave him with? He was a parallel version of her, so… “Keep believing in yourself, bud. You’ll ruin the guy who ruined you.”

Despite the pain he was in, that made him smirk. “Heh, I will.” Then he and the interrogation room vanished.

She was left with Arsene in a blank space. “That worked out well,” he said, satisfied with the results. “I was trying to find more information for you. However, the differences between you two are more than simply gender, as you’ve surely noticed.”

“Well I know who my teammates were meant to be,” Chou said. “The TV hostess was the odd one out. Was that to make him realize the differences between us?”

“Yes, also to let you know that your efforts there did incite change.” He then dropped down to be standing by her rather than floating. “And you know your next goal, after taking down Kaneshiro: helping out Futaba. It seems to be the next step in the Game Master’s plans too.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I just know that the best way to help Sojiro right now is to help Futaba. And seeing that dead end, I don’t want that to become truth. While that’s not going to be noticed by anyone outside of Yongen-Jaya, Sojiro went out of his way to help me, a complete stranger to him. I’d like to repay him for that.”

Arsene rubbed his chin. “The chance to help Futaba will come; I will do all I can to make sure it does not slip by you. However, do not forget what you’ve learned in this dream. You will need to be stronger, to help her and others.”

“Got it,” she said with a nod. “So what do you think of this plan to use the Reaper’s Switch to get Felix’s help?”

A deep chuckle came from him as he tipped his hat. “It’s extremely dangerous, there’s no denying that. You are far from capable of facing the Reaper in battle at this time. But using his passageway by outrunning him? That’d doable. I don’t have enough information to judge how much assistance this demon artist can give you. But even an average one would open up interesting opportunities. It should be worthwhile.”

“Then I’ve just got to convince Morgana of that.”

The dream ended there.

* * *

6/21

It may have ended, but Chou was pretty sure that she’d kept dreaming after that point. When she woke up, she remembered encountering her male counterpart clearly. And the dead ends, alongside all the things she’d seen in that one area of Kaneshiro’s Palace. Outside the one open window panel, she saw that dawn was barely starting and it wasn’t currently raining. That meant she had plenty of time to clear the disturbing things out of her head. But since she was up, she could start composing the calling card’s message. Now, what would get under Kaneshiro’s skin?

Some time later, Morgana woke up with a long stretch of her legs. “Oh, you’re already up?” she asked.

“I went to bed really early yesterday,” Chou said. “Of course I’m up early. Good morning.”

“Good morning.” She spent a few more moments stretching before coming to her side. “What’re you up to?”

“Writing the calling card message,” she explained, then saved her message. “And since you’re up now, could you help me take care of this cut? I’d rather Sojiro not see it yet.”

“Sure, and we need to discuss what we each saw yesterday,” Morgana said.

“Let’s go to my layer of the Metaverse in a bit, so you have hands rather than paws,” Chou said, getting up to retrieve the first aide kit that she’d gotten from Iwai. It had more of the gauze to keep the wound protected.

They went into the Metaverse in the bathroom downstairs. “That’s not too bad,” Morgana said on seeing it herself. “Though you’re lucky. If it had cut much deeper, it would’ve gone straight through your skin.”

“And that was through my coat,” Chou said, applying the salve to it. It did sting, but the wound was already looking better. “It was a strong Shadow, a Rahkasha. It didn’t have the strongest aura color to Third Eye, but it was still too strong to be my Persona. Okay, put that gauze over the wound so I can wrap the bandage back over it securely.”

“Sure,” she said, putting the gauze she’d cut in place. The injury was in an awkward place for Chou to do this herself, but Morgana helped wrap it up quickly. “So what else happened to you in the Palace?”

“Well what happened to you?” Chou asked with a teasing grin.

“No, you first!” Morgana said with a playful grin.

“Play you Rock-Paper-Scissors and the loser tells first,” she said.

“You’re on!” She had picked rock, while Chou had paper. “Aw man… all right, all right, let’s go back upstairs and talk.”

After opening a few more window panels upstairs, they exchanged information about yesterday. Chou didn’t get too descriptive with the things she’d seen in that one sub-basement, but Morgana’s ears still tilted down in sympathy on hearing of it. She also told her about Felix and her dream of her counterpart. While it was a lot to get through, it was important that they had the same information to deal with Kaneshiro and whatever awaited them in the future.

“I do agree that we should take out Kaneshiro soon,” Morgana said. “But we need to make sure we’re both in good condition, given what’s happened with the other Palace owners. And then there’s Ultrablack’s connection to Akechi to be concerned about. Even if we should take care of Kaneshiro soon so we can be ready to help Futaba, doing that will increase Akechi’s suspicions about us.”

“I did my best to divert him in the walkway,” Chou said, holding her pillow in her lap now to be comfortable. “But it seems that wasn’t enough. Yet even if taking out Kaneshiro this week will make Akechi investigate us further, we cannot let that Shibuya mafia stay in power. They’re making so many people suffer for his delusions of power and they will not stop any time soon. We just need to be prepared to confront Akechi and distract him from the truth.”

She nodded and curled her tail. “Agreed. And I think a key to that is going to be that Felix person. He has the potential to give us the alibis we need. You’ve said before that Arsene seems defiant to fusions. Giving him a new form that you could pass off as a separate Persona could be a good alibi.”

“That would work,” she said. “When I get a chance to speak with Akechi, then, I’ll bring up the texts that make it seem like I was targeted. Then I can talk about the alternate form of Arsene as my Persona; Yusuke should have that portrait of Joker and Arsene out in public view soon. As long as I’m careful, that could convince him that I can’t be one of the Phantom Thieves, much less Joker.”

“It’s going to be a long-term scam,” Morgana said as a warning. “But if you can convince him of that, you’re not going to be a suspect again for a long time. And if you’re not a suspect, I’m even less of one because I look like a cat.”

Smiling, she said, “That is another good thing about your current form.”

“I guess,” she said, not wanting to fully agree.

“Then we’re going to being racing the Reaper soon?” Chou asked eagerly.

Morgana chuckled. “Sure thing! I’d have a hard time as a van, but as a motorcycle? Piece of cake. We should also be planning for how to post Kaneshiro’s calling cards. He’s like some roach, constantly in hiding. But we’re gonna flush him out.”

“I need to see if I can access the information I took off those bank computers,” she said. “If we can, good news: we should be able to identify addresses significant to the mafia to know how to reach him. If we can’t, we may have to return to figure out the addresses there.”

“If we use enough of those addresses, it should draw attention,” she said. They discussed the message Chou had so far and what to do with it.

At one point, they had to stop because they both heard Sojiro coming to the stairs. “Hey Chou, you up?” he asked, trying not to be too loud.

She got up from the bed to meet him at the stairs. “Yeah, I’ve been up for a little while. Good morning.”

“Morning,” he replied on seeing her. “I hope your schedule doesn’t get too far off track; don’t be staying up so late reading again.”

“Sorry, I’ll try not to,” she said.

He nodded at that. “You’d better. How’s that injury doing? I could help you check on it.”

“It’s fine, I already cleaned it up and applied more medicine,” Chou said. “Although I’m lucky I didn’t hurt myself worse when I was tired. Definitely have to be more careful.”

“Right, take good care of that,” Sojiro said, turning around to head back. “You had breakfast yet?”

“Yeah, but may I grab some coffee before I head out to catch the train?”

“Of course, I’ll have one hot and ready for you.”

“Thanks!” She got her uniform to change since she was already over here. “Even if we need to get stronger, the sooner we can help out Sojiro and Futaba, the better.”

“Yeah, we can do it!” Morgana said, waving a paw up.

Chou smiled and caught her paw to shake it. “We certainly can.”


	59. The Reaper's Switch

6/21

At school, her friends were worried about her bandaged up arm. Yuuki, Ann, Seong, and even Sadayo all asked her about it before classes started, then Shiho and Ryuji asked about it over lunch and Haru insisted on going around with her on gardening duties. Chou convinced them all that it wasn’t bad. As long as she didn’t show up with more injuries like this in the future, they shouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. It was all the more reason to act with caution, and try to keep her distance in battles.

But thanks to Haru sticking around, Chou was able to get into the Occult Club meeting without missing too much of it. The group was split in two, with the president and his friends off in one corner gossiping. Her friends and Mr. Hiruta were in another area putting together a list. “Sorry about being late, but this’ll be a thing on Tuesdays,” Chou said, sitting down with the second group.

“It’s no problem,” Yuuki said. “You have your committee duties too. We were just brain-storming what kind of fortune telling we should have going at the second-year fundraiser.”

“Well my knowledge of that is in Tarot card readings,” she said, getting out her deck. Morgana was already out of the bag, slinking away under desks to find a spot to observe from.

“Tarot cards are so mysterious and wonderful,” a student she didn’t know said. “But I haven’t learned them yet. I have learned to read tea leaves; I could teach a couple others in time for the festival.”

“We’d have to have supplies for making the tea,” Ann pointed out. “But that would be pretty fun, don’t you think Shiho?”

“Yeah, it could be nice,” Shiho agreed.

“I’ve been thinking about that one,” Mr. Hiruta said. “You said you had a book that showed common tea leaf readings, correct? It may be best to set apart certain times for tea reading sessions in small groups, letting the customers try to figure out the meanings. People will be intrigued to find their own fortunes, even if they’re not exact.”

The girl nodded. “That’d be good. We could even set up a relaxing environment to enjoy the tea.”

“And we were going to do goofy predictions with a box to pull paper fortunes from,” Yuuki said. “So they’ll have a choice between quick and funny, or slow and relaxing.”

“And I’ve got something really flashy!” another girl in the group said, taking something from her bag. “Um, I was worried that this would be serious, but if it’s going to be fun, I’ve got this!” She then set a crystal ball the size of a grapefruit on the table.

“How did you hide that all day?” one of the boys asked, eyes wide in surprise like some others.

“Wow, you really have a crystal ball?” the tea reading girl asked in enchantment.

“Uh-huh,” she said happily, moving a switch on the stand. Colors and shadows began to shift around inside the crystal. “Pretty cool, huh? It’s got a hidden bank of light projectors here and a small processor to make it seem like it’s random.” She touched the base in a way that got the movement to settle down, at least until she moved the hand close to the crystal. Blue mist bloomed to match her movements.

“That’s quite a device there,” Mr. Hiruta said, impressed. “You could make a riveting show of fortune telling with that.”

She nodded. “Yeah, my mother made this for her fortune teller hobby. But she’s adamant that we only use it for entertainment, making it clear to people that they shouldn’t take it seriously. It’s all making stuff up based on pretty lights.” She set her hand down and let the colors glitter for a bit.

“That’s the kind I thing I intend to do with my cards,” Chou said, flipping through the cards to look through them in a mundane manner. She pulled out Death and set it on the table too. “Tarot card reading is partly crafting tales based on symbolism. It’s multi-layered symbolism too; you can’t just take the face meaning of something. Like here, Death is actually unlikely to mean someone is going to die.”

“But then what would it mean?” Yuuki asked.

“The end is a new beginning,” Mr. Hiruta said. “I haven’t studied the Tarot in depth, but I know some general ideas from it. That’s an idea that shows up in several places. If this card shows up in a reading, it could mean that one part of your life is ending, but a new part is beginning. See how the illustration has a number of circles to it? The cycles of the universe continue on even if a star bursts into a nova upon death.”

Chou nodded. “Right, the journey is a cycle. And there are multiple cards in a reading; you have to be able to figure out which meanings to use, how the symbolism would all connect, and if the resulting interpretation would make sense compared to human nature and the person in question. So while I can offer some readings for fun, I can’t teach this in a month when I’m still learning it myself.”

“But it would be interesting to people if we offered Tarot readings too,” Shiho said. “Do you know anyone else who could do that?”

“I’d have to ask my teacher if she’d be okay with it, so I can’t say for sure,” she said.

“We’ll definitely make it clear that the fortune telling is an entertainment,” Mr. Hiruta said. “Even so, these methods are all related to creativity and psychology. The future cannot be assessed with certainty, creating a dread that has long lingered in humanity. But psychology and sociology can be studied; science can help explain why these mysteries are so fascinating and why people swear by them.” Then he gestured to the crystal ball. “Sometimes the fascination is in aesthetics, sometimes it is in giving meaning to what seems meaningless and random. We could discuss psychology in the next few weeks; it may enhance the readings we give.”

“Isn’t psychology one of the things people use to dismiss the occult?” Yuuki asked. “For excusing events with misinterpretations or even hallucinations.”

“Once you know the excuses, it becomes clear what must be done to disprove them,” Mr. Hiruta said. “Like with the electricity problem you mentioned. I’ve heard others say it simply failed or the wires were cut; electrical systems can fail for any number of reasons, so it’s a simple explanation. But with some investigation, you may see what I see odd in those events.”

“I asked one of the janitors about that and he said he’d come in before club period was over,” Yuuki said.

A couple minutes later, the janitor came in to explain matters. “We have variable times, but mostly we start a couple hours before students arrive and end whenever we get all the cleaning done for the day. I’m an early bird, so I was the one who discovered the blackout that day. There’s a breaker box in one of our rooms; I checked there first and got the power back on there. If the wires had been cut, that wouldn’t work and we would have called for an electrician to figure out where the break was.”

“Were any of the fuses busted?” Yuuki asked.

The janitor shook his head. “Nope, I gave it a close look over. The police did send over an electrician to study things. From what we talked about, nothing was broken, damaged, or overloaded. The power had simply been shut off without a trace of who’d done it.”

“How could you shut off power to a whole building?” Ann asked.

“You can do that from the breaker box in the closet,” he said. “Or from outside where the power gauge is. We do so for repairs at times. However, both areas are locked when there’s no one in the building. And I can assure you that both locations were locked that day; I unlocked the closet to get in there and a buddy of mine unlocked the outer station for the investigators.”

“So this might be a locked room mystery?” Chou asked.

The janitor nodded. “Right. There’s always the possibility that they simply took a key from the staff office, got their cards posted while the power was out, made sure the two locations were locked, and then put the key back.”

“But wasn’t one of the problems that the security cameras didn’t catch anyone near the two power areas?” Shiho asked. “Can you get to either area without being seen by a camera?”

“I don’t believe so,” he said. “You would have to request permission, but I could show you guys the security area where we access the cameras. The police were investigating there for a while, but I didn’t hear if they found any evidence of the security feeds being tampered with. However, I do remember some of them complaining about a lack of evidence around the blackout.”

“If they want to call themselves phantom thieves, they’d best be good at covering their tracks like that,” Mr. Hiruta said. “We’ll investigate the practical matters of this mystery before getting into the occult, to eliminate possibilities and reveal issues like the lack of images for the power outage.”

As the club was dismissed, she remembered that there was something to ask her friends. “Hey guys, any of you interested in a group date?”

“What?!” Ryuji asked, surprised.

“Is that so surprising?” Chou asked, tilting her head.

“Well more unexpected than a surprise,” he said, rubbing his head.

Ann laughed. “That’s the same thing!”

Chuckling too, Chou said, “It was surprising to me too, but Makoto and I got asked by some of her classmates and we were hoping another couple could come along.”

“Huh, are you and Makoto dating?” Ann asked, now surprised. Yuuki looked really surprised at that.

She shook her head. “It was a mistake, but we’re trying to help her classmate out now. It’s gonna be this Saturday if you have the time.”

“Well it could be fun,” Ann said, then looked over at Ryuji. “Hey, you wanna go?”

“H-huh?” Ryuji asked, even more surprised. But it disappointed Shiho; how should this be handled?

“I don’t mean seriously,” Ann said, rolling her eyes. “But if it’s to help out somebody and do something fun, why not? I just don’t know many others I’d take on a date, even just a casual one.”

“Uh, I got it,” Ryuji said. He didn’t seem as disappointed as Shiho was. “But what’s a fake date have to do with helping someone?”

“One of Makoto’s classmates is dating a suspicious man,” Chou explained. “We want to find out more about him, but need to meet him in person first.”

Ryuji nodded. “Ah, so it’s an investigation? Alright, that sounds like a good cause.”

“You’d best be ready to look good then,” Ann said, picking up her bag. “Sorry, I have to go out to a shoot. See you guys tomorrow!”

“Sure, see you,” Shiho said, doing her best to be cheerful.

Then Ryuji turned to Yuuki. “Hey man, can I talk to you about something?”

“Huh?” Yuuki asked, puzzled. “Oh, okay. See you girls tomorrow.”

“Right, see you then,” Chou said. Thinking it was a good chance, she asked Shiho, “Since they’re all off, want to go run for a bit, then get dinner?”

She gave it a moment’s thought, then nodded. “Sure, might as well.”

“Have you tried the ramen place Ryuji likes?” she asked as they headed out. “We should be able to get in.”

“I don’t think I have.”

Shiho remained quiet while they were at the university gym. Running on the treadmill did make her feel a little better. In the ramen shop, she apologized for it. Chou shrugged. “It’s fine, sometimes you just need to think.”

“Right,” Shiho said, still dispirited.

“You disappointed that Ann didn’t ask you out on the date?” Chou asked.

Her ears turned red as she stammered, “H-huh, uh, I mean…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chou said quietly. “I’ve spent a few evenings lately hanging out in a queer bar; it’s fine by me.”

Relived on hearing that, she calmed down. “Oh, really? That’s bold of you, to hang out in a bar at our age.”

“The bartender’s nice, but she’s strict with the rules,” she said. “It’s part of why I feel comfortable being there to talk to interesting people.”

“That’s good,” Shiho said. “Well, if you don’t mind it, then yeah, I was kind of hoping she’d ask me.” She sighed and looked down in her ramen bowl. “I mean, after you said you were going on this group date with Makoto, I thought that maybe she wouldn’t assume she needed a guy for a date, and maybe she’d ask me… though I should’ve kept that in mind and know you wouldn’t have a problem hearing me out on this.”

Getting some hints from her Chariot Persona, she nodded. “Eh, it’s easy to lose track of small details when there’s something bigger to worry about.”

“Yeah,” she said.

Chou put a hand on her arm. “And I’m sorry I caused this by bringing the group date up with everybody. The one girl is getting involved with a guy who works in a shadier bar; I don’t know her well, but if I can keep her from getting in trouble, I’d like to give it a shot.”

Shiho nodded. “It’s fine, especially for that reason. I’m worried for that girl now too, so I hope this helps. Um, I know you’ll be focused on that, but do you mind watching them too and see if Ann’s really interested in Ryuji, or if she just asked him as a guy friend she trusts?”

“Will do,” Chou said.

“Thanks,” she said, giving a weak smile. “I mean, it should simply be that she trusts him as a friend. I do too. Ryuji has his weak points, but deep down he’s a good guy who cares about people. He’s been improving ever since Kamoshida was taken down.” She paused. “I’m not sure I’m improving much myself, though. Ann’s bounced back too, even better than before.”

“You go at your own pace and we’ll be there for you if you have trouble,” she said.

I’ll try not to be too much of a bother,” Shiho said, although she was cheered up by it. “Actually, the way Ann’s been lately is what made me start thinking that maybe we could be something more? She’s always been beautiful and fun, but lately she’s been so warm and confidant. I want to protect her better, somehow. She’s going to have to deal with others like him who only notice her looks and nothing that’s truly her. So I want to be there to support her and help her brush such guys off. Or at least, make sure she ends up with someone who truly likes and respects her. If she’s happy with someone else, I’d try to be happy for her…” but even now just thinking on it, it was giving Shiho some difficulty in accepting.

Chou wanted to see the two of them end up together. But whatever happened, she’d support both of them. And right now… she tugged at Shiho’s arm and gave her a mischievous wink. “We’d rather that not happen, but if it does, don’t worry. I’ll just take you out some night and we’ll go pick up some chicks.”

Shiho burst out laughing at that and couldn’t speak for a few moments. “I never thought I’d hear that out of one of my friends,” she eventually said. “It’d be better if it didn’t happen but, sure, if Ann ends up with someone else, I’ll take you up on that offer. But what kind of girls do you like? Or guys?”

Feeling like she’d enjoy some honesty, she answered, “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve had some crushes here and there on all sorts of people, sometimes really intense feelings at that. But nothing that’s ever lasted very long, not even a day. I just like being around people, you now? Sometimes a person who seems ordinary on the surface can turn out to be quite interesting. I’ve been on a few dates, but never a second date.”

“That’s a pity,” Shiho said. “I hope you do find someone who keeps your interest.”

Chou nodded. “Sure, and somebody who could accept me and my weirdness. I got a lot of admirers last summer when I went on a tomboy streak for school break and acted entirely like a guy. But then I made several people mad when they figured out I wasn’t a guy. I did apologize, but if one of them went, that was actually funny, I might’ve ended up going out with them.”

“Yeah, that’d be an important thing in someone you like,” she said. They talked for a while longer, then parted because Shiho wanted to focus on homework over the evening.

Since she wanted to take things easy, Chou went to pick up a blank calling card before heading back to Leblanc. She put the pin drive from the Palace into her laptop to see what it had gotten. There were six large documents on it. Unfortunately, five of the six were illegible to her. Was there some way to clear it up? The fortunate thing was that the address list was an actual list that she could read. Excellent, that made the mission better.

She checked with Morgana again about the calling card and their plans, then placed the stickers on the card. That way, it’d be ready for when they were.

* * *

6/22

Wednesday morning, her injury was looking good enough that she left the bandage off. Sojiro frowned on seeing how long the cut was, but agreed that it was healing nicely. Taking on Kaneshiro’s Shadow didn’t seem like a good idea today, so perhaps tomorrow. While eating some of Sojiro’s curry for breakfast, she thought over what she might want to do today to prepare. She should get the calling card copied and check on her supplies. And she needed to look up the addresses too. Later on at the end of classes, Chou checked her messages and found one from Yusuke; he wanted to show her the Joker portrait before he turned it in for a student show. She let him know she’d be over in about an hour and headed out.

Yusuke met her in front of Kosei to let her in, to the art room they’d used before. The picture was on an easel and immediately she could tell it was unusual. While it was done on a normal rectangular canvas, additions had been made to put irregular surreal imagery surrounding the main focus. Chou recognized the surreal elements as being from Yusuke’s Palace bud, from the warped halls and off-putting furnishings. Joker was in the center; the white mask covered her face. Around the eyes, there were black markings that she hadn’t realized were there. They resembled the face pattern on hawks. Arsene was right at her back, seeming like he’d just turned around to grin at the viewer.

And this Joker had a lean masculine build without hints of being female. She would have thought it was the Joker she’d met in that dream. The hair was drawn shorter than hers was now, although the thick strands hid the edges of the mask. “That’s a really nice painting,” Chou said. “The edge scenery makes it stand out even more.”

“That came out of a discussion in class about composition and using the space you have,” Yusuke said. “I thought it would bring out how you work in abnormal spaces, by using abnormal dimensions. Although, I hope people don’t think I’m trying too hard to stand out. I thought it was good symbolism.”

On a seat near the easel, Morgana looked up at Yusuke and said, “I think it looks cool that way!”

“Morgana thinks it’s cool too,” Chou said. “And this is what people expect; they could match it to dream memories.”

He nodded. “Good, then you should be safe. I hope others can appreciate it…”

“Do you like it?” she asked, able to tell that he didn’t feel satisfied with it. Although she couldn’t tell what would be wrong with it.

“Well I felt confidant about it earlier,” Yusuke said, still looking over the painting. “This composition adjustment came right to me in the lecture and my teacher here helped me craft it. With your confirmation, this painting does what I wanted it to. I can’t see any big mistakes, and yet… well, I hope people at the show see what I was going for. That should make this one satisfying.”

“You’re free from Madarame,” Chou said, then pointed to some of the surreal imagery. “I saw this in your dreams when I was helping you.”

“That is where it’s from,” he admitted. “I’ve had that dream again on a few nights. But since you exposed him, I’ve been able to escape it. And yet, I find myself going back inside in search of something. I know I can get out, there’s just something important there. I’m not sure what it is when I’m awake.”

“Is it still about getting Madarame’s approval?” she asked.

Tensing up, he put a hand to his chin. “Well…”

“When I was in Madarame’s Palace, I saw some of his memories of you,” she said. “And your mother. There was a time when she asked him to take care of you after she passed away; she mentioned that you saw him like a grandfather then.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised you can see the truth of things that I can’t recall,” Yusuke said. “That would be why I thought to put Joker in this setting… it seems I need to work on myself some more. Tomorrow, I’m going to turn this in to the show. I can invite you over to the museum as my guest on Sunday to see how the reception is.”

“Sure thing,” then thought of something that made her smile. “And thank you, Yusuke, for setting my public image with this. It’ll be a great help to us.”

“I’m glad to be of service,” he said, giving a small bow as well as a smile. It seemed to restore some of his confidence in the painting.

As she was in the neighborhood, Chou went by the tofu shop nearby to get dinner and pick up one of their bento boxes. One claimed that it was excellent for boosting energy, so she bought it. She stopped off at Leblanc to put it in the fridge and drop off a few other things in her room. “You ready to go race the Reaper tonight?” Chou asked, rubbing Morgana’s head.

“Yeah, let’s do this!”

Back in Shibuya, they went into Mementos to meet the twins. Justine was outside. “What brings you here today?” she asked, pausing in reviewing something on her clipboard.

“We’re here to take that box back to Felix,” Joker explained. “So we’ll need that and the key to the Reaper’s Switch.”

“We warned you of the risk doing so has,” she said, worried although her voice didn’t show it. “Is your partner aware of it?”

“She wants to know that you’re aware of the risks,” Joker told Ace.

She nodded. “Right, we’ll need to be carrying a key that will attract the attention of the Reaper. I know how dangerous that Shadow is, and that we don’t stand a chance against them in battle. But I’m sure we can outrun them!”

“We’ll escape Mementos if we get caught,” Joker added. “But we decided that getting the help of a demon artist could be of great value to us.”

“And it’s only right we return it after I took it out of a chest,” Ace said.

“Very well, I hope you succeed,” Justine said, setting her pen in the clip. “I’ll go retrieve what you need.” She came back out a moment later with the stationary box and an iron key with a skull engraved on it. “As we stated, the passage to Kaldabash is in Aiyatsbus, the second stretch of Mementos you entered. The switch to other tracks can randomly appear on any level when you hold the key; it will be denoted with a sign at the entrance. But the Reaper will be close on your heels once you leave this safe zone.”

“All right,” Joker said, accepting the items. She then related the new information to Ace.

“The sign helps because then we only have to search other levels for an exit,” Ace said. “And I can get a general sense of where that would be. We can transfer to the safe level in that area and just head down from there. Let’s go.”

“See you later,” Joker said, waving to Justine.

“Good luck,” the warden said.

On the stairs down from the safe level, the clatter of chains suddenly came from above them. “That’s the Reaper,” Ace said, glancing around. “No switch sign here, so let’s book it.”

They hurried across the platform to get to the rails. Moments later, they were racing down the tunnels away from the Reaper. The Shadows down here were all weaker ones they’d fought many times, leading their aura to be blue. Several of those rushed out of their way on seeing Ace’s headlight. At the end of the level, they got a surprise. Instead of the rail ending, it now held a spiral tunnel down. Joker slowed them down to take the circle down.

“Man, I wish these were in normal levels,” Ace said, right before they heard the chains close behind them again. “Oh geez, they can warp when we entered a new level.”

“We’re fine,” Joker said, knowing they could outpace the Reaper again. She didn’t speed up until they were sure that this level didn’t have a new sign.

On the fourth level down, there was a brightly lit sign indicating that there was a another line nearby, to a neighborhood that Joker didn’t recognize. A skull that matched the key was there too. “Here we are!” Ace said. “I’m not sure where, but it’s this level.”

“Let’s try following the sign,” she said, guiding them to the right where the arrow pointed. Unfortunately, that was a quick turn into a dead end.

And the Reaper was in the turn to the level entrance. There was something feral about their appearance, a violent yet natural death that had ripped out chains meant to bind it. Those chains were still attached to the Reaper, and the giant scythe they used as a weapon. Despite a feeling of dread, Joker wasn’t going to let it intimidate her. Defying the terror that it tried to pin her in place with, she gripped the handles to reassure Ace and sped right past the Reaper. It got a hold on its scythe as she moved by; a loud chink behind her indicated that it had struck the wall by the time she was down another turn. A powerful foe, but slow. Someday they might be able to challenge the Reaper in battle, but not today.

The sign turned out to be right, even though the path there wound around itself before sending them up to a circular room littered with skulls and other bones. There were seven doors in the room, including the one they came in through. In the center, there was a single rail heading into an empty part of the wall. A bank of switches and dials was to the side, with a keyhole marked by a skull. Joker hopped off the bike and used the key. A pair of names lit up in the center: Aiyatsbus and None. With a dial near the destination, she flipped through names until ‘Kaldabash’ showed up.

As she heard chains in the distance, most of the floor rotated counterclockwise past one set of doors. It stopped at the second set, causing the two doors to open up. Names appeared above the doors, Kaldabash to the left. Taking the key back, she got on the bike and drove through there. The tunnel was full of fog, but bright lights gave a sense of direction. Clanks of chains and the pattering of rain came all around them. Unable to tell where exactly the Reaper was, they kept racing forward.

The fog lessened shortly before they burst into another circular switch room. Not hearing chains, Joker stopped them in the center. “Should we go up or down?”

“Uh…” her engine rumbled for a bit before she said, “Our target… oh, up two floors! I hope that’s right.”

“Let’s go until we hit a safe area or find him,” Joker said, taking off down the spiral to get to the level proper. The Reaper’s chains warned them once they left the switch room.

They found the exit down first, causing them to race by the Reaper once again. Fortunately, the Shadows were still running away from them, giving them free room to rush. The next level was full of branching paths, leading them this way and that until they spotted the end platform. Further up, there was a straight path to another ramp up; this was a safe level.

There was a person sitting in the waiting area, a young-looking man holding a sketchbook in his lap as he watched them come in. He wore a coat with many pockets and a fedora, in colors that were like the twins’ uniforms; he kept his pale hair in a short ponytail. Getting off the bike so Ace could transform back, Joker asked, “Are you Felix?”

He nodded. Closer to him, it was clear that his left eye was really a blue crystal. “Yes, but who are you? You aren’t the people who are usually here.”

“I’m Joker, and this is Ace,” she said.

Ace came up alongside her and brought out the box. “Yup, and we hear this belongs to you.”

Felix froze up a moment, then snatched the box from her. “Y-you found it?!” He opened it up, checked on the cards, and pulled out the pan. Giving a sigh of relief, he said, “Thank goodness, it’s fine. And thank you. I thought I’d hid it well and got so worried when it vanished.”

“Uh, well sorry but I found it in a locked chest in another area of Mementos,” Ace said, rubbing her chin.

Thankfully, that confused him. “Another area? No, I put it here in Kaldabash.”

Pointing in the direction upward, she said, “It was in a grungy white area in the starting level from the Yongen-Jaya station. The Shadows were really tough.”

“Yongen-Jaya?” Felix thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “That’s strange; you shouldn’t be able to get to Kaldabash from that area, at least not easily.”

“We usually go in at the Shibuya station,” Ace said. “That was just an exploration to see if the area would be useful.”

“That’s dangerous because the areas vary in the strength of the Shadows,” he said. “But you can’t get here from Shibuya either.”

“We came in through the Reaper’s Switch,” Ace said, pointing down.

He stared at her, then at Joker. “Really? You came through that passage to return my box?”

Taking the key back out to show him, Joker nodded. “Yup, that’s what we did.”

“You two are crazy,” Felix said. “That’s impressive. Well hmm… I was assigned to work with certain Players within the Game, not including you.” He shrugged. “But I wasn’t disallowed from doing work for others and my current client said that he does not want my assistance any further. I’ll use my cards for you, so what would you like drawn?”

“What can you draw for us?” Joker asked. They’d been told what a demon artist could do, but it’d be better to hear what Felix was capable of.

“My specialty is in costumes and Persona forms,” he said. “Costumes alter the appearance formed by your will protecting you in the Metaverse; I can also link abilities into costumes so that you can swap skill sets on the fly. Like, Joker, you could set your current costume to stealth and speed. It gives me that sense. With a second costume, you could trade off the stealth for power. Forms are like that for Personas, giving them a different appearance for different abilities.”

“That sounds pretty good,” Joker said. So her goal was met, as long as this wasn’t going to cost too much.

“Yeah, that could fix some problems!” Ace said. “Can you make me a different costume so that I can be better support for Joker?”

Felix gave her a good look, much like Yusuke did when drawing. “Hmmm, what exactly do you have in mind?”

Snapping her fingers, she made the earbud appear. “So far, when we’re facing a challenging battle, we’ve been calling in a guy called Yuuki Mishima to scan Shadows and give us tactical support. His Persona Beholder is good at that, even got us these things which let us communicate when separated. But it still takes some time to call in a dreamer. If I could just change costumes to go from active fighter to background supporter, that’d be more useful.”

“Beholder…” he set his sketchbook on the bench to summon a large book. “Let me see, Beholder as a supporter…” he checked the information, then looked at her. “But you’re not human.”

“Ugh, truly?” she asked, her ears drooping in disappointment.

“You’re a special case of an avatar,” Felix said. “In which case, you’re asking for a form change, not a costume change.”

“What do you mean by that?” Joker asked.

He shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know enough about her to explain more. An avatar represents something, a powerful being or idea. In the way her true identity is obscured, I can tell she’s special. But that’s all I can tell.”

“Well could you keep that to yourself, please?” Ace asked. “I’ve got a general idea of my mission, but if the wrong people realize I’m around, it could cause problems.”

Shrugging, Felix said, “Sure, I don’t think I’d be questioned on something like that. But if I am, I’d rather not compromise my client’s trust. To allow you to swap between fighter and support, I can design something in about eight hours.”

“Just eight hours?” Ace asked, her eyes wide. “Wow, we might even be able to do our next big operation tomorrow morning!”

Joker nodded. “That would be great. What would you charge for that?”

“Eight thousand yen,” Felix said. “But I’ll waive that fee this once because you returned my stationary box. Another job would cost you, but what would you like, Joker? I’m eager to do some more work finally.”

“I’d like an alternate form for my first Persona, Arsene,” Joker said, summoning him out. “I want to present him as a different Persona when he’ll soon be the Persona associated with Joker.”

“Such a disguise will help us avoid being unnecessarily exposed,” Arsene said.

Felix looked over Arsene, then over her. “That should not be difficult,” he said after a few moments. “It could take longer, but I’ll only charge three thousand yen for it. Unless you want a specific skill set on the alternate form. What kind of image would you want in such a disguise?”

“Something that seems nonthreatening, especially to other Players,” Joker said. “We wouldn’t even mind if his alternate form is useless in battle, just as long as it gets others who can sense Personas to underestimate us.”

He nodded. “In that case, the three thousand yen charge stands. Since you would like Ace’s alternate form sooner, I can have the Arsene job done,” he pulled out a pocket watch and checked it, “Saturday morning. I’ll expect payment then.”

“Could you meet us over at the Shibuya entrance instead of here?” Joker asked. “So we don’t have to race by the Reaper any time we want to ask you about work.”

“Sure, that won’t be a problem,” Felix said, sending the large book away. “I’ll know if my assigned client calls for me, although I don’t expect them to call. And some new scenery would be nice. Lurking around a busier locale like Shibuya may be inspiring.”

“Then we have a deal,” Joker said. Not a Confidant, but that was fine. Maybe he could speak to the twins and help them too.

“If we’re going to try the next mission tomorrow, we’d best head out and get a good night’s sleep,” Ace said. “See you tomorrow, Felix!”

“Yes, I’m glad to be of assistance,” he said, giving them a smile.

* * *

6/23

Chou headed out of Leblanc before Sojiro got in; she left him a quick note that she was doing school work. He’d probably mention something about her crazy schedule, but that was how things were. Since it was so early, the trains weren’t packed. That let her compare the addresses taken from Kaneshiro’s Palace against a city map. There were cameras all over the place, plus those who worked at the stores would be preparing for the day. Due to that, she was going to have to be extra mindful how she went in and out of the Metaverse. If her path seemed too erratic, they might remember that she was out wandering around when the cards got posted.

In the subway station itself, she ducked into a stall of the women’s restroom to get into Mementos first. Joker left a mechanical pencil by the stall so she remembered the location. If it got left behind anywhere today, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Others would see it as just a lost pencil. She and Ace then headed down to meet up with Felix.

As promised, he had Ace’s new form ready. “Here’s a card for your fighter form and a card for your tactical support form,” he said, offering her both. “How you use them is whatever makes sense to you to shift from one card to the other. Your fighter form has Zorro as a Persona, but he is not useful for your new role. Thus, your Persona for support is Mathemagician.”

“Who?” she asked, examining both cards.

Felix then opened his sketchbook to a drawing of a person at a computer, surrounded by computer windows and programming. “Programmers have been writing analytical programs that make predictions based upon input data and patterns, to put it simply. For others, these programs seem like wizards in making accurate predictions out of complex numerical data. People rely on and trust in these wizards. There was already a math-focused wizard in the Sea of Souls named Mathemagician, so these new ideas gravitated to him. He will help analyze the world around you to offer the important information.”

“I generally trust my gut, but that does sound like a useful Persona,” Ace said. She swapped the cards in hand to put Mathemagician over Zorro. With just that, her sword belt was replaced by a black cloak that resembled how they looked to each other when hiding near cover; faint numbers could be seen in the material. A hood was pulled over her head, although her ears pushed it up into two points rather than rounded. “Ah-ha, that works! I’ll see how this does over this morning so we’ll be prepared for later.”

Ace always had a much easier time escaping the notice of Shadows and demons, Joker thought. But to be good tactical support, she’d need to go completely ignored by all but her. “Looks snazzy when I can see her, nice job,” Joker said to Felix.

“Well you don’t want your support teammate to be kidnapped or something,” he said. “I’m still on track with your request; it requires careful consideration. Also, I’m glad you asked to meet over here. I’ve been speaking a bit with Justine since I haven’t gotten to do so with someone like me for a while.”

Justine nodded. “He wasn’t assigned to assist you in your rehabilitation. However, you accepted a great risk and sought him out on your own. This should be acceptable.”

“If you guys get in trouble over this, just let us know and we’ll help out,” Joker said.

From there, it was back to the real world to post the cards. She needed gloves to not leave fingerprints on them, but her costume as Joker had gloves already. Chou followed the map of Shibuya on her phone with the addresses marked on it; Morgana took the pencil around to mark the spots where they shifted between realms. All the while, they both kept alert to how much people were alert to them. If someone noticed, Chou paused as if texting. That was a normal enough thing that people lost interest and went back to their own work. There were others, including a few students, around doing early chores. Near a convenience store, there was one girl Chou’s age who paid more attention to Morgana. She let the girl pet her before Chou came over to retrieve her like she’d wandered off. Hopefully, the girl just recalled them as a cute cat and owner.

Some addresses were off the main paths, enough that it’d be suspicious if they walked down them. Instead, they shifted over to the Metaverse just out of the way and headed over that way. These paths became foggy as they didn’t know these areas well. However, the Metaverse Navigator began supporting the city map app so that it remained usable. Ace’s new Persona could then scan the area ahead, compare it to the map, then project an estimated scenery they could navigate and post cards to. After double-checking a few spots that had some stores, it seemed that Item Shift was allowing Joker to post such cards despite the distance from where she was leaving.

“There’s some things out there that we need to be careful of,” Morgana said one time when they got back. “They’re like Shadows in that they’d attack us, but they’re not Shadows.”

“Demons?” Chou asked, crouched down as she pretended to fiddle with Morgana’s collar.

“Maybe. I just know that I don’t want to tangle with them.”

The most distant address that was still in Shibuya was outside of a club. Some notes stated that the club was a cover for Kaneshiro’s headquarters, where he lived and worked. There was even a license plate number for the car that Kaneshiro frequently used. Seeing the car there, Chou decided to place the original calling card on the windshield of the card like it was a traffic ticket. That should make its way to him. With extra cards in hand, they headed back to Central Street to post those at common notice spots.

But there were enough around already that people noticed them. “It’s so gaudy that I can’t read it,” an old man complained as Chou got back from putting a card on a pole with other papers. She pretended to check her phone as the old man demanded, “What does it even say?”

A middle-aged man with him put his hand to the card. “It says… ‘Junya Kaneshiro, a cruel sinner of gluttony, desires money so greatly that he destroys many lives with blackmail, drugs, prostitution, and violence. He drains victims of all their money, then casts them aside like garbage when they have nothing. The police and the government allow him to rule over Shibuya even though he brings nothing but ruin with his insecurity. Kaneshiro, we shall steal your distorted heart and make you confess your sins. From the phantom thieves of dreams.’”

“Is that right?” the old man asked, rubbing his chin.

“Yes, that’s what it says. Do we take them down?”

“No, leave them. That thug has had this coming, if not in life, then in the afterlife. I hope he does get humiliated.” He then headed into one of the stores with the other man following behind. Chou and Morgana posted the last of the cards, then headed off for Shujin.

By the time her last class was done, Chou still hadn’t gotten notice that Kaneshiro had seen his calling card. Was he a night owl? That could cause problems. She had taken the tofu bento box for lunch today with the hope that she could steal his heart this afternoon. When would he notice?

Since she couldn’t go right after class anyhow, she glanced back at Seong. “Hey, my friends and I have a study session now. Want to join us?”

“Sure, that’d be good,” he said. “My notes aren’t that great this semester, so I need to go back over class material.”

Ann, Shiho, and Ryuji were happy to welcome Seong to their group, although Yuuki seemed unsure. There wasn’t much to do for that now as they reviewed the week’s math lessons, then moved on to science. Thankfully, Seong was able to help with the math and science tutoring too. He just needed to be sure of what lessons had been taught.

As they were gathering their things up, Ann asked Seong, “How’re you on your English?”

“All right, enough to pass,” he said. “It’s tougher than Japanese and I don’t get the chance to use English every day.”

“Oh, is Japanese not your first language either?” she asked, interested to hear this.

Seong shrugged. “Sort of, I learned both it and Korean as a kid. But any language isn’t as sensible as science.”

“I’d rather deal with language than science,” Ann said. “But that’s why we’re working together.”

“It seems like a good thing to me,” he said.

“Well finals are coming up, so we all need to be ready,” Chou said, hearing a chime from her phone. Checking it, it was a notification from the Navigator. Kaneshiro had seen his calling card now. They could take care of him today as planned.

“Yeah, we should all do our best!” Ann said with a bright smile.

“It’s tough, but has to be done,” Shiho said.

“I guess,” Ryuji said in a half-hearted tone, but then laughed. “I’m kidding, I’ll study. Don’t want to disappoint the team by getting kicked out for low grades, after all.”

“You do have to set a good example now,” Chou said to tease him. “Anyhow, sorry guys, something’s come up and I’ve got to get going.”

“See you tomorrow,” Seong said cheerfully.

“Yeah, good luck with whatever it is,” Yuuki added.

Hopefully she’d never have to tell them the whole truth; it’d keep them safer.


	60. A Fly in the Oinkmint

6/23

The day started with fried eggs on toast with bacon, along with a mug of good German beer. Never mind that most people would be eating lunch now; Junya would do things by his own time. Then he reviewed income statements for the week. Before long, he picked up a pattern of just average payments. That was a pity. It covered costs, but the profit wasn’t satisfying. And there were no photos of punishments, which was also a pity. Were some of his men slacking?

When a guard came up to announce a member with some news, Junya saw fit to make him wait. If they were slacking, make them sweat. Start pulling the noose in over them. He could find more workers for any position. That seemed more necessary as the reports continued to be weak and average. If they weren’t getting as much money as possible, they weren’t worthy of his protection.

He finally let the man in, once he had his companion for the day at his side. She was a new girl since he kept feeling like one of the others was being too willful. Like she was hiding someone, or making her own actions rather than following his orders. Everyone was to follow his lead and pay him off. He was the most dangerous and powerful man around Tokyo.

However, his underling came in with a strange card. Was that from the Phantom Thieves? He’d been warned that they might have an eye on him, although they couldn’t do anything without a name. Not wanting to be bothered, he had the underling read it.

It was from the Phantom Thieves; they had his name. How had they learned his name? It had to be a leak… from one of his girls or one of his men? Whatever, they’d all suffer until one of them squealed! He sent the girl off and told the man that they had all failed in their work. He would have the money he expected out of them. It was time to set the enforcers against each other.

If it tore apart the group, it didn’t matter. Junya just needed the money to survive whatever was thrown at him. Besides, he knew he was clever with a strong will. Those Phantom Thieves were in for a rough time if they thought they could defy him.

But they had his name. What if they could do something?

* * *

The Phan-Site was bursting with excitement as another target had been declared. No one there would know who Kaneshiro was aside from what was on the calling card; it didn’t stop anonymous posters from claiming they did. However, the majority posting seemed to know about the Shibuya mafia. Topics quickly came up on how the media was covering up the extent of the mafia’s deeds. Stories were pouring out about extortions, beatings, and missing persons. If taking out the Hashimotos wasn’t enough, this was going to get notice.

In Kaneshiro’s Palace, bright lights swept across the red-tinged streets. They immediately ducked into the shadows to avoid notice. Near the posters of Kaneshiro’s face, there were wanted notices for them. No pictures, just big black letters and demands of any information. The ATM people were huddled in alleyways and businesses while guard Shadows patrolled the streets searching for them. When Ace offered her paw, Joker took it to teleport them to the safe room in the ring vaults.

Ace put her ear against the door, focused through it. Her cloak fluttered with power. “There’s not much activity out there,” she said as she pulled back. “I guess he sent out all his guards to search the streets. The vaults were moved around to block the path forward.”

“I still have the keys,” Joker said, bringing them out. “And even if he changed the codes, I know his system. This won’t take long if there’s fewer Shadows around.”

The codes had changed, but the system still worked. They didn’t hear from Kaneshiro’s thoughts this time. But with the Shadows not around, that was fine since it drew less attention to them. Outside the last elevator, Ace paused. “So the next floor is one gigantic open room? We will be noticed for going down there. Do we want to call anyone else in?”

“Not unless we start having trouble,” she said. “We only know one of his victims and he’s dead. You might want to hide so it appears like it’s only me.”

She nodded. “Okay, and I have a way to distract enemies if you do need to call on back-up. I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I can.”

“Got it.” Punching her fists together, she said, “Let’s go crack the safe on this guy’s heart.”

Ace chuckled at that. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

In the elevator, Ace faded into the shadows right by the door. Joker sent them down and shifted her posture to a way to draw attention: confidant, determined, not caring that she was seen. The elevator came to a stop and opened its doors to a narrower room than she remembered. Right in front of them, a massive vault door blocked off where she had seen the unformed Treasure. The machinery was still all around, hinting that the door had been placed there once Palace security was at its peak. No one was there to greet them, but spotlights covered the floor and would expose at least Joker once she went in.

She stepped into the door of the elevator and paused there before stepping into a light. “What’s it look like?” she whispered.

“The Treasure is behind the door there,” she said. “But so is some kind of giant machine. There’s no other doors, so the Treasure will be revealed when the giant machine is. Hmm, that seems like it’d be some kind of ace to win a battle, brought out when your opponent thinks they’re winning. But that’ll reveal our goal; we’ll have to fight for it.”

“Right, then let’s get their attention,” Joker said, stepping out into the light. Other spotlights quickly turned to her, so she smiled and waved at them. Ace slipped in behind her and kept out of the light.

After a moment, a speaker squealed at being abruptly turned on. “Who the hell are you?!” Kaneshiro sputtered. The machinery creaked and whirred, trying to flush out all danger when it was working at its hardest already. “And what are you doing down there? My bank’s defenses are impregnable!”

She spoke loud and clear to answer, “I’m Joker of the Phantom Thieves of Dreams, here to steal your heart. The others are off causing mayhem in other parts of this bank. So then, all I’ve got to do is crack this last safe…”

“Stop right there!” Kaneshiro demanded. When she didn’t comply, he called out, “Guards! Get off your lazy bums and stop him!”

Three thugs in loud shirts appeared as the elevator went back up. “Looks like we’ve got some rat crawling around here in the basements,” one of them said, cracking his knuckles. “Time to crush ‘im.”

Casting Sukukaga on herself, Joker said, “Careful, rats are mean.” She dodged out of the man’s punch, then stabbed his hand with her dagger.

Another thug tried to grab her; Joker dodged that too, moving further away from the three. Ace spoke through the earbud, “I can’t get a read on their skills, but I get a feeling like they’ll try to incapacitate you so they can beat up on you without repercussions. They don’t have a lot of defenses and are weak to all kinds of elements; they only have defenses against Light.”

“Got it.” She kept moving out of their way until they’d bunched together in pursuit. Then she struck them with Mareiga. The one who’d threatened her was thrown to the ground to dissolve into shadows. While the other two were knocked down, they each took a gunshot to get rid of.

Alarms blared as the oni Shadows emerged from the ground. Them again? She got rid of them and the following wave of two of the armless warriors and one of the Rahkasha. By then, the elevator returned. Kaneshiro’s Shadow strode out with new copies of his flunkies, doing his best to remain confidant and unshakable. But having someone down here without warning had him sweating.

“Call your underlings off, they’re making a mess of things,” Shadow Kaneshiro demanded.

Joker raised an eyebrow; her mask wouldn’t let that be seen. Meanwhile, Ace said, “Hmm, I guess you mentioning others must have produced cognitions of them. Well that makes things easier on us!”

Hearing that, Joker told the Shadow, “No, you’d have to defeat them. Go ahead and do that if you want, or try your luck with me.” She twirled her dagger around to point it at him.

“Hmph, my forces are enough to take care of them,” Shadow Kaneshiro said, smirking but still sweating. “I will tear that mask off, reveal who you are to the world, and then utterly humiliate you. You will be obligated to give all your money to me; pay me off now and I’ll consider holding off on revealing who you are, boy.”

“Not when I’m going to expose you for the slimy scum you are,” Joker said.

For a moment, Bael appeared in ghostly form behind Kaneshiro. “Anyone who stands against me is swatted down right away; you will be no different. This money is mine!”

Bael then fused with him, causing an extra pair of arms and wings to burst out of his body. His underlings screamed in terror and rushed back to the elevator to escape. As his head twisted unnaturally, his eyes ballooned out into multifaceted eyes that covered much of his face. A pair of thin antennae finished off his transformation into an even more purple flyman.

Giving himself a look over, he snapped four times at once to make a necklace with a giant gold kanji appear. Shiny gold rings glittered on his fingers. “Yo yo, you’d best pay up or get beat up!” he rapped, making exaggerated motions.

Joker sighed and retorted, “If your henchmen hadn’t run off in terror, they woud’ve died in shame.”

“You don’t get it!” He flew over and made to grab her. “Pay up!”

Her money was her money. She slashed at his face before moving back to refresh Sukukaja. Meanwhile, Ace said, “He’s not weak or strong to anything and he’s fast, but he doesn’t seem that powerful. He’s got that thing behind the door, but he means this form to be easy.”

“Figured it was so, Queen,” Joker said.

“Huh?” Ace asked.

“Tell your underlings to leave!” Shadow Kaneshiro demanded again, buzzing his wings to send an Eiga after her. It didn’t hurt as much as it could.

“Don’t worry, Ace, this is working,” Joker said.

“Oh, gotcha, inflating our numbers,” Ace said, then laughed. “I remember now, so if you call me any card related name, I’ll know what’s up.”

Joker held back since she didn’t want to show her full power, just as he was doing. It was like trying to pursue a pesky fly that kept escaping the swatter, except that the fly was after her. Back and forth blows, always moving away while trying not to get cornered. Eventually, one of her gunshots hit him hard enough to knock him to his knees. She shot him again before he flew up towards the door. Good, he should open it now.

“Hmph, this is only a small setback,” Shadow Kaneshiro said, rubbing his hands together. “You have some fight to you. But it won’t be enough when I reveal my true power! Hah!”

The wheel on the vault door spun around, causing it to move away from the rest of the wall. The various parts retracted out of the room with the wheel being lifted straight up into a now open slot. Past the door, there was a mess of coins, boxes, and gold bars. Some of the gold bars were of reasonable size while others were comically giant. Yen bills were drifting down from vaults on higher levels. As for the machine that had been hiding, it turned out to be a giant steel piggy bank.

Flying onto the steel pig’s snout, Shadow Kaneshiro spread his arms and called out, “Look at this room! And look how pitiful this money sits here! I should have enough money to fill this space and swim in it! I can only do the latter in the reduced vaults above. This is not satisfactory!”

“So you already see yourself as a loser,” Joker said, projecting her voice but not bellowing like him. Ace chuckled over the earbud. “Good to know.”

“I am not!” he insisted before he hopped into the giant pig’s snout. “I am powerful! I rule Shibuya! And now you will be put in place by my glorious Piggytron! Fire!”

The pig’s eyes opened up, revealing enormous gun barrels that fired down at her. A couple struck near, but most strayed wide. “That pig doesn’t seem threatening,” she said, shifting Persona to send Mazan at them.

Shouting through the speakers, he insisted, “This is not a pig! This is Piggytron! And you are lowborn scum, nothing but a petty thief!”

“So says the literal thief to the metaphysical thief,” Joker retorted.

“I’ve found the Treasure!” Ae said triumphantly. “It’s hidden among all that figurative junk, but the true shine can’t escape me!”

“Fine, Jack, but what about what’s in front of you?” Joker asked.

“Oops! Heh heh… lemme see…”

Piggytron then lifted in the air, flew over, and tried to land on her. Due to its size, it was easy to get out of the way of and try a Bufula against. The tremor of it landing did throw off her aim, only skimming one of its feet. This was going to take timing things right, especially as it kept firing at her. As it turned around to head back to its spot amid the gold, it farted over her.

A Diarama healed Joker back up, from wherever Ace was hiding now. “You okay, Joker? That fart contains fear gas.”

“I’m fine,” she replied quietly, then spoke up, “That’s hardly disgusting in comparison to all else you’re doing, Kaneshiro.”

“How did you learn my name?!” Piggytron took off suddenly and crashed into some of the gold bars in its hurry.

“Strong against physical attacks and status effects, neutral against everything else,” Ace said hurriedly. “Kaneshiro’s still the same, they’re not fused or anything. Piggytron is a vehicle.”

“Got it,” Joker said quietly.

“Answer me!” He called out an even bigger gun to fire down at her.

Feeling it was locking an aim through Third Eye, Joker waited until it had done so before darting out of the way. She let the echoes of the gunshot die off before saying, “Your name? The dead want vengeance. That’s how.”

“Dead men tell no tales as you will find out for yourself!” It took aim at her.

Again, she waited until it locked before getting out of the way. This time, she retaliated with Frei. “Do you truly believe so? They’re watching, waiting for their time to be heard.”

A chill filled the room. “He must be falling for it, given this cognition change,” Ace said.

“Well neither you nor the ghosts belong here! Piggytron! Let’s show them what real power is!” He then flew out of the robot pig, which then retracted its limbs and snout to turn into a ball.

“Uh, what’s that for?” Ace asked.

As the pig sphere began rotating in place, Joker could guess what it meant to do. “Get in a corner,” she whispered as she sent Frei after Kaneshiro. “It should be safest.”

“The Treasure’s in a corner, so I’ll snag that,” Ace said.

It took some time to accelerate, during which Joker kept firing spells at Kaneshiro. Sparks and smoke began to build off the bottom of Piggytron, while chilly mist seeped in along the edges. Out of the corner of her eye, Joker thought she saw the mist forming hands. She didn’t get a good look at it as one of her spells knocked Kaneshiro off balance. Although physics would make him fall off backwards, the Shadow fell off right in front of Piggytron with a yelp. Having lost its controller, Piggytron shot off across the vault and squashed Kaneshiro comically flat. It pinged off the wall like some crazed ball, bouncing off the walls a dozen times. By the time Kaneshiro plumped himself back up, Piggytron lost enough momentum to smash back into him again and roll slowly towards the back of the vault.

As Joker and Ace had been crouched in corners, the rotund pig could not touch them. A Tarukaga came over Joker; Ace could do that now? That was handy as she could focus more on her attacks. Her next Frei wore Kaneshiro down enough that he stayed on his knees; his fine suit was stained and torn. “Th-the money is mine,” he said, desperately gathering some up. “I need it! Can’t you see? This is my money, but I need more!”

“You’re pitiful,” Joker said, going over to him. “The dead want vengeance and they’re going to get it. Face your sins.” She connected her power to him and let him see what his actions did.

Ruin, poverty, shame, fear, desperation, pain, death… there were so many victims. Kaneshiro did his best to resist; that suffering wasn’t his own, but he caused it! And he could be proud of it. Frowning, Joker denied that. This was how he ruined lives and he would experience it as his own pain. He would not escape his sins; he would not escape vengeance.

Whether the ghosts were cognitions or real, they gathered in and latched onto her power. They forced Kaneshiro to experience their suffering. Rape, entrapment, blackmail, assault, drugs, fear, depression, death, all just so Kaneshiro could cover over his cowardly weak self with money. But no more; they would not allow this any longer.

Kaneshiro screamed loud enough that Piggytron shattered into dust. Joker put a hand on her forehead, trying to get the pain of the victims out of her head. Seeing that movement as a threat, Kaneshiro rushed off towards the giant gold bars. But they vanished as the flying bank rumbled in instability. “Where’s my money?!” he screamed, trying to save himself.

“I have the Treasure, by the elevator,” Ace said. “Let’s use a Goho-m, that’d be best.”

“All right, guys, we got what we came for, let’s head out,” Joker said loudly.

“Waaaaiiiit, no no no!” Kaneshiro tried to rush after her. But his wings no longer worked and he fell flat on his face partway there. Still, he scrambled up as best he could. “Give it back! Please, pretty please? I swore I’d never suffer under debt again, I need it back!”

“You should worry more about your debt of sin before thinking about money again,” Joker said. “There’s no way you can give back all that you have taken from others. But you should make an effort to atone; that is your way forward.”

“No, don’t do this to me,” he whined. “I don’t deserve this… I don’t! This is just the way the world is! The powerless give and the powerful take, and I chose to be among the powerful. This… this is an accomplishment…”

She shook her head. “It’s a disgrace that you couldn’t rise above gluttony.”

“Disgrace…” he tried to laugh, but was too anxious to pull it off. “You’re naive… why go after me? You can do anything you want with your power; there’s another guy all in black who does just that, gets all the wealth and fame he could want through the power of the Metaverse.”

“You mean Ultrablack?” she asked. “He’s the one causing the mental shutdowns and psychotic breaks, isn’t he?”

“If it’s not you, then it’s almost certainly him,” Kaneshiro said. “Look, you can take any of the rest of this money! It’ll be real when you get out, I, I swear! Just give back the, uh, the, um…”

“The real Treasure?” she said, then shook her head again. “No. You’re not escaping your sins.”

Not giving up, he tried to get up to come to her; the bank shook hard, knocking him back down. “B-but, I, I’m not who you’re after! It must be so! I’m not central to all this, I’m just a small town leader, see? I, I…” his mind struggled to continue the lie.

“I came after you because your victims wanted justice,” Joker said, clear and confidant despite things falling apart around them. It felt like the bank was losing altitude, but she had a feeling that it wouldn’t crash while they spoke. “But if you’re not central to things, you had best make it clear and public who is central, like how Ultrablack is the one to blame for other crimes, him and the one who orders him about.”

The way he paled made his skin almost natural looking. “Uh… I guess you know more about this. B-but you do realize if I do that, that’s basically a death sentence to me. Even the Hashimotos got killed, even when he was warned that it was a bad idea.”

“It’s your choice how you atone, my work with you is done,” Joker said.

“Then I really can’t escape this,” he said, terror in his words. “Just like I made sure my victims couldn’t escape me… ah ha ha, I guess, that’s how the world is…” he then vanished.

Joker then sprinted to the elevator where Ace was; there was a golden briefcase in her paws. She passed over a Goh-m stick, so Joker snapped it to get them out. In seconds, they were back in the quiet alleyway they had entered the Palace from. People were rarely here. They certainly weren’t now and the camera nearest to them was under Iwai’s control. As Morgana was now sitting on top of the bright briefcase, that was a good thing.

“All right, we got ‘em on our own!” Morgana said, but then waved a paw up at her. “Huh, Chou? You okay?”

Crouching down, she shook her head. “I was making stuff up about the vengeance of the dead at first, but then…” she shuddered some now that she didn’t have to keep the mask on, “oh my god, he has so many victims who suffered horribly.”

“That’s awful,” she said, putting one paw on Chou’s knee to pat her cheek. “I wish you didn’t have to see all that; it did seem to last longer than usual.”

“He fought accepting it, so there might be others like that,” she said.

On glancing around, Morgana patted her again. “Hey, Mathemagician tells me that there’s nobody but Iwai in his shop. He knows about us, so let’s go in there. Besides, we can’t exactly sneak this thing off to the train station.”

“No way I’m getting that in my bag,” Chou said, taking the handle to pick up once Morgana got off it. Speaking to Iwai was the most reasonable thing to do, so they went inside.

He was there with his feet up on the counter, reading a newspaper. But he put it aside on seeing them. “Seems like you succeeded again,” he said. “People have been talking about those cards all day.”

Nodding, Chou put the briefcase on the counter. “Yes, but it was a rough fight mentally.”

Morgana hopped up onto the counter to speak easier with them. “She can force them to face their sins through the eyes of their victims, but then she sees those sins too. She needs a moment to get things out of her head before we go back out in public.”

“That sucks,” Iwai said, softening up in concern. He unlatched the counter door to let them in back. “Well come on, bring that back here so we can discuss it without being seen.”

“It’s heavy with something, but I don’t know how to pick these locks,” Chou said, following him into the backroom. There was a crafting table with enough space to put the gold briefcase on.

“It ain’t too hard, just you need some quiet and focus for it,” Iwai said.

“Yeah, you listen to those dial locks,” Morgana said, now taking a stool to herself. “And it’s a subtle difference, but this should be good to practice with.”

“I suppose you’d need to know how to reset a combination on a secondhand briefcase, Iwai,” Chou said, leaning down to try it herself.

“That’s what I’d tell people,” he said.

There was also another sign that Chou noticed: the right numbers were more worn down than the rest. That let her pick out the third number without listening. “He must not change this passcode much,” she said, opening up the briefcase.

Inside, there were thirty stacks of yen bills stuffed in tight. There were only thin lines of space caused by the bands that held the bills together. “Whoa, that’s a lot of money!” Morgana said, peeking inside. “Isn’t it?”

Iwai snorted. “A lot of fake money. The briefcase could fetch a pretty penny, but the money’s worthless.”

There were purple bust portraits of Kaneshiro on the bills, Chou noted, as well as a sign of it being from the Children’s Bank. Nothing official from the government. “It’s still his money,” she said, holding back on touching the bills with her bare hands. “Some of these things we bring in are symbolic of the Palace owner’s distortions. We called him out on gluttony because he wanted the money to cover up his insecurities, not to use it for anything. Without the money, he can’t hide his sins.”

“Ah, then that’s how you’re getting things like this and the locket,” Iwai said, rubbing his chin. “Not keeping your trophies then?”

“Why would I?” she asked, looking at him. “They’re embodiments of sin even if they turn to normal objects in reality. I’m even going to sell that book I got from Mr. Hashimoto, but I’ll just take it to Jinbocho.”

“It’s a disturbing book even if it claims to be children stories,” Morgana said.

“Good on you,” Iwai said. “If you were more like the villain that some people are making you out to be, then you would be keeping them as reminders of victories. I’ve got a paper shredder if you want to take care of the bills; it’ll take a while, but then they can be dumped in a recycling bin.”

However, she’d been considering those bills, trying to keep her mind off things. “Could do that, but he was paying off police officers to leave his mafia alone. What if we dropped the bills off right at the police station’s door? We can snap a couple photos and post them anonymously to the Phan-Site like we did with the Sayuri, so it doesn’t escape notice.”

“Oh yeah, that’d raise a ruckus,” Morgana said, pleased at the idea.

Iwai chuckled at it. “Certainly would. If you do that, I’ll tell you which address you should be using. There’s several offices around Shibuya where police work and I don’t want the good ones to get flak over that stunt.”

“Then you have info on where the bad ones work?” Chou asked, taking out her phone. “The addresses we took down included a neighborhood police station.”

“Lemme see…” he soon pointed out the one she’d posted cards to. “That’s the place you should use. Over here, this is where the detective I trust works, so leave him out of it.”

“It wasn’t in the address list, so we already did,” she said.

The bell over the entrance jangled, bringing their attention to a customer. “Well leave this and we’ll work on your model,” Iwai suggested. “That should help.”

“Sure, thanks,” Chou said, following him back out.

There were a few other customers who came and went while she was there. While they were curious about a girl being there, the only one who asked got the same bluff as before: she was learning to put models together so she could work on cute ones. It got accepted and anyone else seemed to trust Iwai enough to accept her as another customer. Working on the model did help to clear her mind, that and listening to Iwai talk about the models he had for sale. She didn’t know any other expert in guns, so they were fascinating things to learn.

As the sun started going down, she and Morgana took some generic store bags to take the money over to the police station and get the photos to post. The rest of the evening could be taken easy. This mission was complete and they just had to wait on Kaneshiro’s response. Well, that and deal with Akechi when they ran into him next, and wait on when they could help Futaba.

A lot of waiting, but they’d gotten a lot accomplished this month already.

* * *

The next business target… Haneruya, again. From the news, Goro knew they were rallying up well from his previous attacks. But no matter how hard they tried, their reputation was weakening. Perhaps he could make someone start a fire this time? It’d be different, but it wouldn’t be a hard suggestion to implant. If he could find the right person, it might not even seem out of place. If not, all well. The uncharacteristic crimes were some of the most interesting to the public.

A spot of red and violet out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Goro paused by a pole that had a familiar card on it. They’d already made a move? And who was this for?

Junya Kaneshiro, called out as a sinner of gluttony.

“Damn,” he muttered. Did he not take the warning seriously? Had Amamiya been lying to him in the overpass? Or was this mere coincidence?

It could be mere coincidence. He’d done some research and discovered that she was on probation for assault. Checking the details, the case file had a number of signs of being fixed and paid off. The thing Kamoshida had done to her was reveal her probation to all of the Shujin students; that led to reports of her being bullied. However, she wasn’t reacting to the bullying with violence. Her attendance was regular and she’d not gotten a single warning of misbehavior. In fact, she was under consideration for being named an honors student despite the probation status. There was a very high chance that she relied on the cat to deal with the bullying and one of her tormentors happened to also be a Kaneshiro.

But he’d discounted most of the Shujin students because an ordinary student couldn’t accomplish what the Phantom Thieves were doing. An extraordinary student who scored at the top of mid-terms despite missing a couple of weeks at the start… she might have the wits to do this. However, he couldn’t just dismiss how she always seemed so ordinary in person. She couldn’t have special powers.

“Could she?” Goro mumbled to himself. He might not be able to spot the signs with her, although he had picked out the other Players upon meeting them in person. Having a Persona and other supernatural powers made a person stand out.

Investigating her further held merit, but he needed to gain her trust to get her to talk. There was also merit in investigating other angles because things didn’t add up. But since he was here in Shibuya, Goro opened up the Metaverse Navigator. If this was like with the Hashimotos…

‘Requested Palace does not exist,’ the Navigator told him. It also could not locate Kaneshiro’s Shadow despite Goro speaking to him earlier this week. There hadn’t been anything unusual when he’d visited. How quickly did they act?

This was going to make their popularity skyrocket. The Hashimotos were bad enough, but they were soft targets. In contrast, the Shibuya mafia was a shadowy entity in the eyes of the public. Someone able to pinpoint their leader and cut him down to size was going to be seen as a brilliant hero. Someone like himself who had been painting the Phantom Thieves as shadowy villains was going to be ridiculed.

“Dammit.” He tore the card off the post and ripped it in half, not caring who might see him. Why were some newbies ruining things? He should be able to catch them… unless the parallel tracks thing was real.

He wasn’t going to lose. Goro hadn’t come this far to have victory escape his clutches. According to the Game Master (through that fool Felix), Joker was being unpredictable even to the Master. Anyone who could elude the Master’s predictions was someone to take serious, by any means at hand. To that end, he needed to solve what was going on so he could confront Joker and his flunkies soon.

Any means at hand… Goro went back to meet with Lars in the old electronics shop. This time, someone was in with him. There was something off about the man; he was dressed in a fine black suit accented in gold, while drinking from an antique goblet that wouldn’t look out of place in a museum. On meeting his eyes, Goro had the feeling that he was dealing with something not human. But that was the same way this Lars too, wasn’t it? An ordinary person would have no clue what was going on in the Metaverse even if Mrs. Hashimoto had brought its existence into the public eye.

“Hello, Goro, nice to see you back,” Lars said with a bright smile. Or maybe it was a dark smile. “This iteration of the Game is getting very interesting.”

“Most certainly,” the visitor said, even raising his glass. “Perhaps things will truly change, for the better even.”

“What the hell is going on with Joker?” Goro asked. “I’ve been keeping tabs on Kaneshiro, but this came out of the blue.”

“Hmm, is that so?” Lars asked, as if he knew it wasn’t so out of the blue.

“I’d call it more red than blue,” the visitor said.

“You could,” Lars said, then gestured to the other man. “Why don’t you ask my friend here? He was keeping an eye on Kaneshiro too. Although, unlike me, he can’t appear outside the Metaverse except in places like this.”

“Call me B,” he said. “For now. If you impress me, I might tell you my name.”

“How do you connect to Kaneshiro?” Goro asked. “What even are you?”

“I am a god of ancient days,” B said as if that should be obvious. “Currently debased as a demon, but I will not allow myself to be forgotten. As for Kaneshiro, I was inhabiting his soul to wait for a time that myself and others like me could emerge.”

“If you look deeply into any Palace, you’ll more than likely find a demon like him around,” Lars added.

B nodded. “It’s unfortunate, though. We’ve failed to find anyone who will allow us to emerge, so we end up trapped in souls like Kaneshiro’s. At least, until the Palace falls and we need another host. The Phantom Thieves of Dreams had him as a target for quite some time. It was only this week that they actively pursed the Treasure to steal. For all his boasting, they cut through his security like a hot knife through butter.”

“But I was there several times this week,” Goro said. “Kaneshiro’s Shadow hadn’t reported anything unusual going on.”

Shrugging, he said, “Because he didn’t notice anything. I did, of course. I challenged them before they challenged him today, even spoke with them.” A sharp smile slipped out, something that truly didn’t look human. “Joker has a brilliant soul that any demon would desire. I tried to tempt him, but my offers fell on deaf ears.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Lars said. “You’re not the right tempter to capture him.”

“I’m surprised that nobody has taken residence in his soul yet, with how brilliant he is.”

“Were we there at different times?” Goro asked, feeling quietly furious that they were talking about Joker like this.

“Yes and no,” B said.

“I told you earlier,” Lars said. “You’re on parallel tracks that can’t meet.”

“How is that possible?” Goro asked, kicking a table in coming closer to them.

“Your Navigators operate slightly differently,” Lars said. “All because of a choice to accept or deny, and because of who the real Player was.”

“I can make it clear,” B said, setting his goblet down to make an abacus appear. He shifted the beads in one section around. “One day this week, you came to speak with Kaneshiro’s Shadow. By my timing, you were there for ten minutes.” He then shifted beads in another section. “Joker was not in the Palace when you arrived. He was also not in the Palace when you left. However, in the ten minutes that you spent inside, Joker was there for, hmm, approximately an hour and a half.”

“That makes no sense,” Goro said.

“Because the timing is different,” B said. He tapped the two sections of the abacus. “Your Navigator operates on real time, does it not? A minute in the Metaverse is a minute in reality. The Navigator used by the Phantom Thieves operates on frozen time. A minute in reality, well, no, a second in reality can be hours in the Metaverse for them. And that is why you will never meet the Phantom Thieves in the Metaverse: you cannot entered a frozen moment of time, and they cannot enter a flowing moment of time.”

“Why did they get a Navigator like that?” he asked. That would be a lot more convenient as he wouldn’t need to set aside hours when he wouldn’t be in reality.

“It was the Game Master’s decision,” Lars said. “Everyone was offered the frozen time Navigator at the start. However, only the Phantom Thieves accepted the Metaverse on the first entry. Even you denied what was happening. As a result, the frozen time Navigator was replaced with the flowing time Navigator.”

“That so-called Master likes to inflict such silent punishments to those that don’t go along with their word,” B said dismissively.

Punishments? Goro recalled the first time he’d entered the Metaverse. It had been a terrifying experience that, yes, he’d escaped and tried to deny what he agreed to. He thought he’d escaped punishment for that initial weakness, but apparently not. “I see. Can you bring back the frozen time Navigator version?”

“I could, but you’d get severely punished for that,” Lars said. “On the scale of being immediately killed and imprisoned in Hell for all of eternity.”

“Or simply having all of your powers revoked,” B said.

“Possibly, if they feel generous,” Lars said, searching in his jacket pockets. Finding what he wanted, he set it on the counter. “But if you were to present the Master with this and request the ability to confront Joker’s group, that should be acceptable.”

Goro picked up the sphere; there were three small nubs to let it sit on the desk. Inside, there was a hologram of a clock face that shifted like it was in moving water. “What is it?”

“A timeshifter,” Lars said. “It’ll take more work than getting the Navigator altered, which is why it should be acceptable. As you kill Shadows, the timeshifter will steal time from them. Once there’s a sufficient amount of time stored, you need to be in a Metaverse location and layer that the Phantom Thieves will be in. The timeshifter will alert you when the right opportunity comes. You then activate it and it will transport you to the frozen time variant of the Metaverse. But once the stored time is used up, you’ll be taken right out.”

“I’ll still have to stumble upon the right time and location,” Goro said, looking at the timeshifter. “But it’ll at least give me the opportunity to face them.”

B gave a sniff. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? Make use of that knowledge and you will know when and where to make use of that artifact.”

Lars chuckled at that. “Certainly, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let you keep that for a hundred yen, and the promise of making this Game even better.”

Were they mocking him? Or did they have confidence that he could win if given this advantage to neutralize that frozen time navigator? “Fine, I’ll make it unforgettable,” he said, getting out the money to pay for it.

“We’ll be looking forward to that,” Lars said.

* * *

Once Goro Akechi had left, Bael looked at the door after him. “It’s unfortunate that Loki was given residence in his soul,” he said. “I could have made better use of him. Or hell, you could’ve ravaged Tokyo by now with him.”

“I wouldn’t be allowed in the Game like that,” Lars said. “I wouldn’t want to be in like that anyhow. Rather, if I’d been in control, things would be a lot different.”

He nodded. “True, these things are always best when one of us is in control. I must say, though, I truly am surprised that Chou’s gone untouched. Her soul is well guarded, but chained down so much that you’d think she’d be seeking a key out fast.”

“Perhaps she’s been touched by someone you can’t sense,” Lars said, giving him a cheeky smile.

Narrowing his eyes, Bael asked, “What, you?”

“No, not yet.”

“Philemon?” he asked with some disgust.

“No,” he said. “If it was him, I would’ve given Goro more than just the timeshifter.”

“True,” he said. “But who would escape my notice to take a soul like her’s?”

Lars chuckled. “I might be fucking with you about that. Or I might be serious. Which do you think it is?”

Bael shook his head. “Your existence is a mindfuck even to me. I should have known better than to expect good answers out of you.”

“Oh please, you’ve watched humanity for thousands of years. You should be able to read me.”

“I would rather stop watching and start ruling,” Bael said, taking up his goblet again. “Are you going to help with that or not?”

Lars shrugged. “It depends on how entertaining that is. This Game is pretty good as it is, but if it gets boring, I’ll ring you up.”

Although, it was the humans rather than the demons that made things interesting. If he let the demons have their crack into the world again, it would be to see how the humans reacted, not to let the demons rule.


	61. Death

???

They were back. The bloody hand prints, the chains, the debts that could never be paid, the fears that could never be escaped… she was imprisoned again, but this wasn’t a prison Chou had seen before. Enormous bones with sharp points and bloodstains towered over her into a dome. The floor was a petrified husk of something organic. While she couldn’t identify it, it was unnerving. And past the bones… were more bones. A whole city built of bones, husks, and blood surrounded her elevated prison. What kind of hell was this?

“Are you seeing now how wicked the world is?” someone asked her. It wasn’t the peerlessly deep voice of Igor, but it was otherworldly. “How much humanity has fallen? Such ugliness must not continue. I want the world wiped clean, to purify it as pure as it was meant to be. But lo, your heart is impure with vengeance and pride. You are as ugly as the rest.”

“Well fuck you too,” she muttered.

“Perhaps you need to better understand the ugliness of sin like your victims do, without resisting it as you did before.”

An unclear image appeared in the cage with her. Chou tried to stand up, but her body felt heavy and her muscles weak. As she caught her balance before she slipped into the chains, the images focused into someone whose identity was burned into her mind with hatred now: Masayoshi Shido. He shifted his glasses, causing reflections to obscure his eyes. “Hmph, it’s some girl who dared to oppose me? If I had known that, I could have settled this far more decisively before.”

Clutching the chains on her, she scowled. “I won’t let you win.” Even if she felt weak, she’d find some way…

The chains burst into blue flames. “Will you fight your nightmares?” Arsene asked.

“Of course.” She tried again to get to her feet.

Once Arsene appeared by her, it was no trouble. He pointed to Shido. “Will you fight with the very chains they try to hold you with?”

“Sure, why not?” She clutched the chains tighter, not affected by the flames.

“Good, let’s be rid of the sins of others.”

“What can a girl like you do against someone powerful like me?” Shido said, bringing up a stack of papers that he threw at her. They exploded once they touched anything.

“Why don’t we both find out?” Chou retorted, whipping one chain into him. It snapped him like a twig.

But as that body turned to splinters, another Shido popped up. He summoned up giant posters of the disturbing scenery she’d seen. Arsene had them burnt to ashes while Chou whipped the chain on her other arm into Shido. Around them, the bony bars got thrown out of place with her attacks. But she didn’t care about that, not when Shido kept popping up like some damn weed that she kept attacking while her anger burned through her. More unwanted images were turned to ashes all around her, falling away from her prison like snow.

Once she started feeling cold and weary, Shido didn’t reappear. Looking down at the ashes, Chou could recall what those images had been, but not the images themselves. She wasn’t able to switch to another Persona, but she made a motion and cast Garu anyhow to sweep the ashes away. “Thanks,” she said.

“I am thou, thou art I,” Arsene said.

Silence hung around them for a moment. The city of bones and husks was still around them, but the cage was gone. While Chou waited, the voice from before didn’t speak again. She turned to Arsene instead; he was looking off to a large structure in the distance. “But who are you?”

He didn’t reply this time, not even with snark. He did look back to her, his own face obscured.

“You seem different this time,” she said.

Turning to face her fully, Arsene touched his mask. “The question is not ‘who are you’. The question is ‘how many masks are you’.”

“How many masks?”

He then offered his hand to her. “For you see, ‘Arsene’ is a Persona of yours. ‘Arsene’ is also a Persona… for a Persona… for someone else. And you intend to give me another mask. How many masks will I become?”

“Too many?” she asked.

Arsene chuckled at that; it was a different chuckle than usual. “Perhaps. But, it is truth. The ‘Arsene Lupin’ listed among your Confidants is not me, for whoever I am. Your Fool Confidant is the one that I am a Persona for, the one that is not you.”

“Well then who is my Confidant?”

He shook his head. “I am a Persona. I protect the self that I belong to, guiding them in how they understand themselves, the world, and where they belong in the world. Therefore, I am unable to reveal their identity to you until they do so themselves.”

That was what a persona was, after all. “I see. Then who are you in between being Arsene and my Confidant?”

“I cannot tell you any more than I have about ‘me’ than I have so far,” he said.

“Well are you my Persona or their Persona?” she asked.

“I… am both.” Arsene crossed his arm over his chest. “I apologize, but as a Persona, I am unable to make a decision like that. I protect the self; I am not a self myself. At least, in an ordinary case, that is how it is. A Persona can draw upon some knowledge from the Collective Subconscious to act as a guide, but it cannot make decisions that are not in line with its purpose in protecting the self.”

“Is that going to become a problem?” Chou asked. The Arsene who was her Confidant didn’t seem like somebody she’d argue with. But now that the possibility was brought up, she realized that there were ways this could go wrong.

For a moment, Arsene didn’t respond. When he did, there was some regret in his words. “That is beyond my knowledge. But my duty is to protect you.” He gestured around them. “From these nightmares that emerge as a result of the powers given to you.” Then he put his hand to his chest. “And perhaps, from my other self. I will not know this for certain until it does become a problem. Or, perhaps when the problem is resolved without friction. But I knew I had to warn you at least when the possibility occurred to me. I cannot tell you who they are now. But, I can tell you that while a Confidant requires some trust, they may be someone you cannot fully trust.”

If the limits of a Persona were as he stated them, then he was being honorable to warn her like this. “I see. Thanks for letting me know.”

“I am thou, thou art I.”

* * *

6/24

What I’ve Learned About Personas

I know the big talk around here is about Kaneshiro and the calling cards, but I wanted to bring up something related to the Phantom Thieves of Dreams: Personas. People who have had dreams of them often wind up with these guardian spirits. I did some research and found out some interesting things about them.

1\. Personas are spirits that guide and protect the person they’re with. They can draw upon wisdom from beyond that person’s knowledge.

2\. Personas cannot make decisions. The exception is if they absolutely must do something to protect their true self, namely the person they protect.

3\. A person who is protected by a Persona is protected from mental shutdowns, psychotic breaks, or heart thefts if these conditions are triggered by someone with access to the dream realm. It is not one hundred percent protection, but the presence of a Persona makes such acts far more difficult.

4\. One method to awaken your own Persona is detailed here. This has been proven to be effective but there are other methods out there, including having someone like the Phantom Thieves awaken one.

5\. If you cannot accept the spirit that appears as a representation of your public face (meaning, your social persona), problems may occur. Some common ill effects reported are headaches and nightmares, but more serious conditions may occur.

-anonymous post on Phantom Aficionado Site

The school day went by as normal, which was a good feeling now. Since there was a composition class today, Chou used the time to post what she wanted known about Personas to the Phan-Site. It was very active due to the calling cards yesterday. Whenever a public statement about Kaneshiro got out, that activity was sure to increase. Her point about what Personas could protect from should get more people trying out the Persona game.

Ann invited Seong to join them for lunch too. “I hadn’t realized it, but you get ignored in class too,” she said when they were all in the courtyard.

“Well people must have thought I wasn’t contributing to class because I kept falling asleep or leaving early,” Seong said, nervous but wanting to talk about it now. He must have started trusting them, although Yuuki still seemed unsure of him. “But, it was because I was stuck in a bad situation with my foster parents.”

“That’s something you can’t do a lot about,” Ryuji said, sympathetic to him.

Seong nodded. “Yeah, but you know what? After Chou convinced me to leave their house and stay in the school dorms, they got targeted by the Phantom Thieves. I found out later that it was Ms. Kawakami who reported them to the Thieves.”

“Wow, really?” Ann asked.

“Yeah, she’s actually pretty cool,” Seong said, smiling now. “She and Maki have been helping me out with all the paperwork with the school and a lawyer handling the case, which has kept me busy all week. But now my life is my own again, not constantly in debt for ridiculous reasons. Hopefully I can earn the respect of our classmates again.”

“They aren’t blind, so you have a chance,” Chou said.

“Yeah, I already signed up for some classroom duties next week, as well as the festival,” Seong said, more enthusiastic than Chou had seen him before. “And I’ll have to talk with the science club after school today, make up for some of the projects I skipped out on before. I’ll still prove myself to everyone, now that I can.”

“Well don’t be overworking yourself again,” Chou said. “Although you’ll be fine, I’m sure.” She did hope that this didn’t cause problems with Yuuki; she might have to talk with him sometime soon.

When they got back to the classroom, Morgana hopped into the desk and patted her. “Hey, your friends there all had Personas, right?”

Chou nodded, getting out the workbook and notebook for the next class.

“I smelled something off then, some distortion,” Morgana said. “I don’t know if it was someone in the area or one of them, but it was definitely there. I’m gonna search around school and see what’s up.”

She nodded again and whispered, “Be careful.” If it was just a bit of distortion, it wouldn’t cause major problems. But whoever was the source should be investigated.

On her way out of the last class, Sadayo stopped her. “Hey, aren’t Fridays your medical trial? Would you like me to come over to help you out tonight?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I don’t think there’s much left to the trial, but they do tend to leave me weak.”

“Good, I’ll bring over some things to make dinner with.” Then she smiled. “And since it shouldn’t be a problem, I can drop by around six, that okay?”

“Yeah, we should be done by then.” She then headed out to find Morgana. The microchip led her to the courtyard, where Morgana was in the nook with the snack and drink machines. “You find anything?”

Morgana sighed and shook her head. “Nope. I can still sniff traces. Something’s going on. I’ll try again later.”

“Well if it’s faint, it might not be so bad,” Chou said, letting her get in the bag. “Then again, we’d want to take care of it before it grows too much.”

“Agreed.” They headed out to catch the train to Yongen-Jaya, and then to Takemi’s clinic.

There was a bouquet at the window in the waiting room, one meant to encourage. There was also a small teddy bear with a balloon saying ‘You got this!’ in the exam room. “This one was from the girl with bronchitis,” Tae explained about the bear. “She’s recovered well enough now to go back to school, which is wonderful.”

“What’s with all the gifts all of a sudden?” Chou asked after taking this round’s dose.

“It is getting a little silly,” Tae said, although she was smiling and having fun. “It didn’t blow up as big as the Hashimotos did, but Oyamada made a public confession earlier this week about everything he’d done. His license was revoked upon his arrest and I’ve been getting lots of apologies and support as people realize that my nickname of the Plague was a misnomer.”

“That’s great, you deserve this,” Chou said cheerfully. It was a good sign.

“Well I don’t know about all this attention, but it is nice,” Tae said. “I even got a letter from Miwa-chan this week as well, saying that she was glad that my name got cleared. Her parents had transferred her to another hospital, which Oyamada saw as bad enough that he claimed she’d died.”

“You’d think that would be seen as worse.”

Tae shrugged. “You’d think, but then again, it would have seemed natural with her condition. Oh, and I’ve already been talking with the university and company about the progress of this trial. This should be the last test before I can send in the formula to be tested with Miwa. Still, I will need to have a couple of follow-up appointments and blood tests with you to make certain there’s no lingering side-effects. They shouldn’t take as long.”

“Sure, I’ll stop in when you need it,” Chou said. “Are you going back to work with the company?”

“No, I won’t be,” she said. “I thought all the attention around this neighborhood was annoying at first. But being a neighborhood doctor isn’t that bad. There’s always some bad eggs, but there’s plenty of kind people around, as evidenced by all the flowers and gifts I’ve gotten this week. Plus, there’s you.” She chuckled a little. “You’re a nag, but you were always challenging me to be better.”

“I like challenging people, including myself,” she said.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Tae agreed. “I’m still going to be doing some medical research, particularly with you. As I’ve told you, the database with medical information pertaining to Persona users is steeped in superstition and needs some scientific examination. I don’t have an actual trial on that yet; it needs more research. But I would like you to stop by any time you have you have a problem, whether it’s something related to yourself, your targets, or even just wanting to talk some. That’s fine, you listened to me talk a lot.”

There was a chime in Chou’s head, different from the ones that started a Confidant. A girl spoke to her in a soft voice as time momentarily slowed. “Under the Death arcana, you have formed a true bond of trust. A chain has come unleashed on your soul, allowing you to fuse the Persona Alice. By this path, you have come closer to true freedom.”

So that was what was meant to happen with Ann and Ryuji earlier. Putting that in the back of her mind for now, Chou nodded. “Sure, thanks. Actually, since you can get back to the university now, can you check back on those reports on cognitive psience? There might be some good information I could use in them.”

“I’ll see what I can do to make those reports easier to understand,” Tae said.

“It’s not just for me,” she said. “I know the researcher’s daughter and she’s interested in if anything of that research is left.”

“Oh really?” Tae asked, looking thoughtful. “That would be important for her too. I’ll text you when I’ve got something to share then.”

Chou was able to keep mostly alert through the trial, with around an hour where she felt better lying down than sitting up. She felt a little dizzy on getting back up to leave, which Tae thought was an interaction with the stress she’d been under in carrying out risky missions this week. She still made notes about it before letting Chou go back home. And in the waiting room, Sadayo had found her already despite not being given the clinic’s address. She was dressed normally, so they could head right over to Chou’s room without seeming suspicious.

And she brought supplies over to show her how to make sautéed greens and omelets with just the hot plate and a skillet. “There won’t be enough heat with a hot plate to do a proper stir-fry,” Sadayo explained. “But the lower heat is optimal for some dishes. You should be able to make some good soups with what you’ve got once colder weather returns.”

“That’d be nice,” Chou said.

They talked for a while about cooking and what she might want to look for in extra supplies. As they were finishing up their meal, Sadayo got around to talking about how things were going with the Takeses. “They’re really like completely different people now, full of guilt. It was almost pitiful how haunted they were, but I can’t completely sympathize with them, not after what they did to Taiki, Seong, and me. It’s karmic horror, I suppose.”

She could play it cool; the images were out of her mind. However, she didn’t think Sadayo would like that. “What we’re doing is horror and karma,” she admitted. “You probably heard about how Morgana and I targeted the leader of the Shibuya mafia this week.”

Nodding, she said, “There’s been a lot of talk about it even though the media hasn’t acknowledged it yet.”

Leaning back and kicking her leg in the air some, she explained, “It was pretty horrific what that mafia was really doing, well beyond what the media was warning people about. Among the powers I was granted for this role is the ability to force people to face their sins through the eyes of their victims. A lot of them have lacked empathy, either in losing it to their sins or never having it in the first place, so that kind of view is mind-shattering. I don’t experience it as vividly as they do, but the connection ends up making me see those sins too.”

Sadayo was immediately concerned about it, even horrified. “It is karma, I suppose, but it’s not fair for you to have to share that kind of experience with them.”

“But that’s the responsibility I accepted in using that power,” Chou said. “I did have a couple of bad nightmares this week because of Kaneshiro. However, I have my Persona protecting me too. I did use that power on myself once, to prove a point, so I know it can be withstood. And my Persona helped me escape that nightmare and banish the memories I got off using that power. Otherwise, today would have been a lot more stressful than it was.”

“That’s good, but you’d best prepare yourself well in the future,” she said. “Why are you even acting as Joker to punish sinners like him and the Takeses? You’re not involved directly in much of it, at least from what I’ve seen.”

Shifting to a more confidant poise, Chou answered, “I do have a goal in all this, and to be honest, it is about revenge for me. I was framed for the crime that put me on probation, but while I was imprisoned, I got the offer to get my revenge in this way. Although he tried to hide it, I found out the name of the man who framed me: Masayoshi Shido.”

Her eyes widened on recognizing the name. “Huh, Shido? Isn’t that one of the Dietmen? He’s been very popular and gained power quickly. Actually, it wasn’t until Mrs. Hashimoto released her confession that questions about him started rising up.”

“That’s him,” Chou said. “He’s one of those who allowed Kaneshiro to get away with his crimes; I don’t know why, possibly because of bribery and criminal favors. I caught Shido trying to force a woman into his car. He then blackmailed her with losing her job and getting arrested for things he had her do for him, just to get me arrested. And he is someone I can target as Joker, technically. He’s far too strong for me to challenge him at this time, in the Metaverse just as much in the normal realm. Instead, I’m going after his supporters, like the Hashimotos and Kaneshiro. I want to do what good I can along the way, but ultimately my goal is to bring down Shido and make him face his sins too.”

Looking at her in awe and worry, Sadayo said, “I hadn’t seen a passion like that in you yet, but I understand. But don’t forget the good you can do too. I heard that Detective Prince guy talking about how vigilantes often lose sight of their ideals and become tyrants. He took things too far at points, stirring up fear with his words. But all the same, he has a good point. If you focus too much on revenge, it could lead to your ruin.”

“I can agree on that point too,” Chou said. “I don’t want to be a tyrant; I don’t want to become a violent person either. Still, I do not like letting jerks like Shido or even the Takeses win. That’s why I chose to become a phantom thief.” She smirked at the thought. “An unseen force of karma full of mysteries and surprises that will bring down corrupt figures of power.”

She did smile at that. “They even believe that Joker is a man.”

“And I’ll let them believe that,” she said. “Actually, you’re the first person past Morgana that I’ve spoken to about these ideas. There’s a couple of other people who know: my doctor and a guy in Shibuya who’s been teaching me some things about weapons. But they haven’t asked about my motivations yet.”

“It was something that I wanted to be sure of,” Sadayo said. “I know that you’re a kind-hearted girl who looks to help others; I’ve seen it in how you’ve been helping your friends get better grades, and how you helped me out when you could have taken advantage of me. Don’t let that escape you, okay? If you can balance that drive against the drive to stop criminals, then you could be the vigilante hero you want to be.”

Just as Chou was wondering about it, she heard the chime again. It had taken longer to get through to Tae, but perhaps what she’d done for Sadayo was enough. The girl (was it the butterfly girl?) quietly told her, “Under the Temperance arcana, you have formed a true bond of trust. A chain has come loose from your soul, allowing you to summon the Persona Ardha. By this path, you have come closer to true freedom.”

“Sure, I won’t forget it,” Chou said.

“Well I’ll keep your secrets for you,” Sadayo said. “Oh, and if you have trouble with your guardian figuring you out, let me know and I’ll talk with him. He would be keeping a close eye on you, so I wouldn’t expect to keep something like that secret from him for long.”

She nodded. “Right, although I hope to help someone close to him soon. I’m just waiting on the right opportunity.”

“I hope that works,” she said, then shrugged. “Well, there’s not many other ways I could support you, except as your teacher. I have started talking with the other teachers to consider naming you an honors student. But you need to prove yourself with finals first.”

“Of course, I’ll do my best and help my friends do the same,” she said. “We still going out to the market someday to discuss things like your ultimate maid cleaning and cooking techniques?”

This time, Sadayo laughed at the mention of being a maid. “Well a good home life leads to a good life in general. So if that’s helpful to you still, of course, I can teach you what I’ve learned. Actually, I brought my special cleaning aide this time. It’s actually simple, an oil blend that you spray onto a rag or those mopping pads. It’s good for wood floors like these and leaves everything smelling much fresher. Here, if you’re feeling up to it, I’ll show you.”

It was another evening of cleaning her room together, but it was far less awkward now, even fun.

* * *

A fist pounded on the door, rather harder than usual. “Hey boss? You in?”

Boss. The word made him shudder now, much like the sight of his special briefcase. He didn’t deserve that. He deserved a hell worse than he’d put his victims through, that’s where he should be. And, he was there already.

Still he had to atone. He had to make things right, somehow. Junya had been racking his brain for ideas, difficult due to all the horrific images in his mind now (all things that he had done, by his own hand or through his mafia). As a result, he had a plan. It wasn’t much of one, and was relying on someone else to have the clearer head to sort things out. But it should work.

“Yes, give me a moment,” he snapped, trying to be as harsh as he’d been just the day before. He looked himself over in the mirror, making sure he at least appeared to have things under control. When he opened up the door, he found his three top lieutenants there. “Good, you’re all here,” he said, acting as gruff as he could manage. “Come in, we need to discuss something.”

“Uh, yeah, we did manage to make up some of the lost profits this week,” one of them said. “But it’s been real tough. Everyone was riled up because of those cards and that stunt with the police station.”

“What stunt?” he asked, repeating in his head that he had to keep acting. He had to fool them.

“Somebody dumped a whole load of fake money in front of the police station’s entrance,” one of them explained. “Where everybody could see it. And, well, all the bills somehow had your name and portrait on them.”

“Is it those weird Phantom Thieves pulling some prank on us?” another one asked.

Good, a reason. “Yes, that’s exactly what’s going on,” Junya said. “I don’t know how my name got out there, but this was all some bluff. I’m perfectly fine. However, it does present a problem. All the accusations are going to make people a lot more suspicious. It might even encourage some people to talk.”

The three seemed relieved at his reassurance. “We figured it had to be some prank,” one said.

“But what do we do now?” another asked. “People are going to be quick to point fingers and even the bribes might not be worth anything.”

Junya nodded. “I hate to say it, but we need to hide out and be quiet for a bit. I’ll speak with some people, make sure our network is still good. But for now, cut back on operating in the open. It’s unfortunate, but we’ll have to deal with lower profits a bit to make sure we don’t fall apart. I’m going into hiding temporarily just in case, but I’ll keep in contact. We can go back to normal operations on the ninth of July, that should be long enough to let this blow over.”

Thankfully, his lieutenants agreed to the plan and split up to send out his orders. Meanwhile, Junya left the building for one of smaller police offices. There was a detective around who led a small group of Shibuya cops who steadfastly refused bribes. He had taken care of them before by bribing other officers into obstructing the detective’s work, making sure that he wasn’t promoted and held little influence. But due to his honor, Junya felt like his best chance at being dealt with fairly and justly was through this detective. It was also his best shot to avoid interference from Shido’s group.

He managed to keep his act up until partway through his confession to the detective, which was long enough to set things up properly.

* * *

‘Mr. Kaneshiro is not afflicted by abnormal symptoms today, so it is clear that the Phantom Thieves failed to steal his heart.’

It was one line in an email, but it was the most important one there. Good, a failure would teach those Phantom Thieves a lesson. And the fact that they did fail meant that Masayoshi would surely defeat them. That is, once their identities were pinned down. Rumors were emerging about the group’s codenames for each other. Jack, King, Queen, Ace… their leader was Joker. A simple scheme, but it gave them a clear clue: they were looking for a group of five that kept involving themselves in the various crime scenes. Perhaps not all five at once, but they had to be doing things themselves.

Still, it was an audacious act to go right after a criminal leader. The other big targets had been easy ones. Perhaps they hid their crimes, but they were easy to identify and expose. Kaneshiro kept to the shadows and only let a very few people know his name in connection to crime. Once he came out of hiding, he could be interrogated about the members of his group and if any of them acted suspiciously. It made a lot of sense for at least one of the Phantom Thieves to have emerged out of the Shibuya mafia when one thought on it. They could have grown an unfortunate conscience and used information from the underground to identify their targets. Hadn’t Madarame used a gang of thugs as security instead of the police? And the other targets would be easy to identify through criminal networks.

This failure should become apparent to the public after a couple of weeks. In the meantime, they needed to identify the Phantom Thieves as soon as possible. This was the perfect time to squash them. And it seemed that boy Akechi had a potentially good scheme to snare them. Masayoshi made a few adjustments and approved his request to do so.

Akechi was coming towards the end of his usefulness, so if he happened to fail here, it was no consequence.

* * *

old_rabbit: Something gone wrong, Alibaba?

Alibaba: No.

Alibaba: Why would you think that?

old_rabbit: You haven’t contacted me back on monitoring a request to the Phantom Thieves of Dreams.

Alibaba: Oh, that. I just got distracted with other stuff.

old_rabbit: It happens.

old_rabbit: You got a target in mind?

Alibaba: sort of.

Alibaba: But I want to do it myself. It’s a bit personal.

old_rabbit: Gotcha.

Alibaba: Though since it is just you and me here, it is scary doing this.

Alibaba: I don’t want to attract the attention of demons or anything, if that’s a possibility with this kind of message.

old_rabbit: It have something to do with being personal too?

Alibaba: yeah, that too.

Alibaba: It’s just one of those things. I want to do this and figure out what’s going on with you guys. But it’s kinda hard to actually do it.

Alibaba: Even if it’s actually simple. I must not be making any sense.

old_rabbit: No, I know just what you mean.

Alibaba: ?

old_rabbit: It’s all right, kiddo. Sometimes you get in a slump and it feels hard to make yourself do anything. Especially something that could change your situation; that’s intimidating.

Alibaba: Yeah, it really is.

old_rabbit: But there will come a time when you have to push yourself to change something, when nothing else can change your situation. You thinking that these Phantom Thieves can help you out with that somehow?

Alibaba: Maybe.

Alibaba: If they’re the heroes that their fans think they are.

old_rabbit: You should give it a try; I won’t think anything bad of you for it. And if you don’t want to do the tracking thing with your message, that’s okay too.

Alibaba: Really? I said I’d do it, so I should.

old_rabbit: Things have changed on my end. I wanted to let you know because of this plan we had.

old_rabbit: I tested out the request method myself, but nothing came of it. My message remained.

old_rabbit: Thing is, I don’t live in Tokyo, where the Phantom Thieves have been operating.

old_rabbit: I know from past experience that sometimes, just one place can become a massive focus of supernatural activity. Get beyond the borders of that place and nothing will seem out of the ordinary.

Alibaba: So it’s just Tokyo that’s the weirdness hotspot now?

old_rabbit: Seems so.

old_rabbit: A couple of old friends came up to me the other day with an idea to go to Tokyo to investigate the Phantom Thieves ourselves. Apparently some government official has been sending out queries for people with experience in supernatural investigations.

Alibaba: Well you would fit the bill because you came up with that possibility of demons right away.

old_rabbit: It’s something I’ve been involved in for a long time. When we get to Tokyo, I’ll try the test again and track from my own equipment.

old_rabbit: Of course, I’d have to locate someone who would fit the profile of their targets. But if you’re willing, we could get answers sooner through your attempt.

Alibaba: I’ll give it some thought.

old_rabbit: And I swear that I won’t reveal anything about you that comes up, not without your permission. We’ll keep in touch and help each other, okay?

Alibaba: Sure, but I hope you don’t mean to arrest the Phantom Thieves! They’re doing good things. Just recently, they called out the leader of a criminal mafia in Shibuya.

old_rabbit: Well I for one would like to speak with them first and assess their intentions.

old_rabbit: I’m sure my friends would agree on that too.

Alibaba: I’ll let you know when I’m ready, or if I change my mind.

old_rabbit: Good.

old_rabbit: I’ve been watching out for you, kid, ever since I identified your activities on the internet. I think you’ve got promise, so if you need any help, let me know.

Alibaba: Really?

old_rabbit: I wouldn’t make that kind of offer without meaning it.

Alibaba: Well I dunno since we just chat here, but thanks for the thought.

At her desk, Futaba took a moment to stretch her arms. old_rabbit was an interesting code cracker to talk to. They were mostly into older technologies and sometimes needed help on new stuff. But when it came to what they knew about, they were really good. They acted like they’d seen every trick in the book and more besides. But, did old_rabbit really get her situation? And did she want to accept their offer of help?

They certainly had the expertise to investigate this disappearing message thing. But with what request she wanted to send… could she really trust them to keep quiet about it? All she had to do was get a disposable phone, get their tracker on it, then send the request. It was a basic plan. But would the Phantom Thieves really do it? It wasn’t like the other stories coming out. No one had basically dared them to steal their own heart. And they’d just be helping one person, her. They might not see it as worth their time.

But… old_rabbit was right about one thing. Something needed to change. If not, then she might as well just die here, never escaping this room. It was basically a tomb now, dark and full of her treasures. And, the voices kept asking why she didn’t just give up and die already.

Why was that?

Anyhow, it was a basic plan. Get a phone… but Sojiro might think it strange for her to get a disposable phone when she already had her own phone. Chou had offered to help her, or at least visit. But, was it all right to trust her to do so? She seemed all right, but she was on probation. And just this week, she had spent a few days with a bandage wrapped around her arm from an injury. It had been a large cut too, at least it seemed so from the security feed.

Just… just this week… just like how the Phantom Thieves had taken out a criminal mafia. Just this week.

Was Chou connected to them? She came back late some days, or she’d come back early and be really tired. She wasn’t like Futaba; Chou had a set schedule because of school and trains. Although, it was more likely that was all coincidence.

Yeah, it was probably just a coincidence. Chou probably would agree to sneak her the phone needed, especially if she was told it was to investigate the Phantom Thieves. Whether she was a part of them or not, she was definitely a fan. But, she could definitely not see the request Futaba intended to send.

Now she just had to invite Chou over… invite somebody she’d only watched over cameras into her room, which only Sojiro could enter if it was really necessary… and then send a message to the Phantom Thieves to steal her own heart so the voices would stop telling her to die… just that…

“Ugh, maybe it would be better to let old rabbit handle things,” Futaba muttered, putting her head on the desk.

But something needed to change or else the voices would kill her…

* * *

“Hey, Morgana? You asleep?”

“You’d better get to bed soon yourself,” she murmured, opening up an eye to look up at her. Chou was at least in her pajamas, so she shouldn’t need to be pestered too much.

However, she did seem worried. “Yeah, but I had a sudden thought and decided to check it out. Look.” She showed off her phone.

The Metaverse Navigator was open, on the Search function. Who had she been looking up? That was… “Futaba Sakura?!” Morgana said, starting to sit up to get a better look. “Whoa, she has a Palace?”

Putting the phone down on the bed, Chou sat down by her. “Seems so. I didn’t even need to triangulate it; that’s their home address, just around the block.”

There was some kind of warning there, scrolled out of sight. Morgana nudged the screen with her paw to see it. “But she’s not a criminal, she’s just really shy. Right?”

Chou had to adjust it to better display the warning. “Right, but Yusuke was distorted enough as a victim to form a bud. Given what we’ve heard about her, she may have turned introverted enough to cause a distortion this bad. But it seems we won’t be able to go in yet.”

“Yeah.” Because according to the warning, the security on the Palace was enough to lock out anyone from coming in. “We’ve going to have to get a request somehow to enter there.”

“But she’s also a shut-in who isn’t interested in getting a visit,” Chou said. Then she picked her phone back up to shut off the Navigator. “Nothing we can do about it tonight; I’ll have to keep texting her and hope for some breakthrough.”

“We could always make the request ourselves, when we have some time,” Morgana said. “But we ought to get to sleep now.”

“Right, I’m too tired to be trying stuff like that now.” She set the phone aside by her glasses and butterfly pin. “Good night Morgana.”

“Good night, Chou.” She curled herself back up again.

But the issue remained on her mind. All they could do right now was hope, huh? Hope that Futaba built up the courage to allow them in, or that making their own request would work… or even hoping that Sojiro might look at the possibility. He’d probably not, so it was down to hoping in their request or in Futaba’s courage…

Hope…

Was there a way to pass on hope to give courage?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One fun thing I can do with fanfic is that I can make the Confidant links chain together, like here where a maxed Death will pull the nulled Hermit in sooner and change some cognitions as a result. Temperance was done quickly, in part because I didn't want to have that situation last too long and in part because it's chaining into another link. If any of my ideas were actually in a game, they'd probably annoy players for things like that, heh.


	62. Fake Dating and Flirting with the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Fanworks Day! This bonus update is luckily fitting to the occasion, much tropes. :)

6/25

“You’re in a good mood this morning,” Sojiro said as he offered her usual morning coffee.

And he looked about the same level of gruff, she thought. But that might not last. They knew about Futaba’s Palace now. Once they got in, things would change. “Yup,” Chou said, smiling at him. “I’ve got a date later today.”

Sojio raised an eyebrow at that. “Huh, with that boy detective, prince whatever?”

She couldn’t help chuckling at that. “Nah, I don’t run into him that often. I’m going out with a cute girl tonight.”

And she had to keep herself from laughing again at the blank stare he gave her. After a moment of trying to word something, he said, “Uh, well, I suppose you can be more open about that kind of thing these days.”

“Do you have a problem with it?” she asked, leaning on the counter briefly.

“No, just don’t get her or yourself in trouble,” Sojiro said. “Hope it goes well.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Chou said. “Oh, Morgana’s staying here today.” Although she might help with investigating Tsukasa, she’d opted out of hiding in a crowd this time.

“Probably needs a break from that bag every so often,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

At Shibuya, she took a moment to shift over to Mementos. Felix was by the entrance to the Velvet Room, without either of the twins being around. He offered her a mask that matched the original shape of hers. “Between your Persona’s eccentricities and the desired image, I called upon Echo for you,” he explained. “Try to summon her.”

“All right,” Joker said, letting the new mask fuse with hers before calling out Echo.

Echo appeared to be a young woman. However, she was covered up in a black dress, a long black shawl, and a long black veil. There was a large crescent-shaped mirror framing her face, along with smaller mirrors decorating her clothes. While most Personas said something on first being summoned, she remained silent. But once Felix started talking, she quietly echoed him. “Echo is of the Fool arcana, but a special one in that if anyone attempts to scan her, she will appear as the arcana of the one looking at her. She can only echo what others do, so she seems harmless. But even echoes can be useful, if you’re clever.”

“They could be,” Joker said, getting echoed by Echo. She dismissed her, then asked, “Is one of Arsene’s eccentricities about how he’s a mask for a mask?”

Felix’s crystal eye glittered for a moment. “You’ve found that out, have you? Yes, and thus another mask wasn’t hard to add for him. You can control both Echo and Arsene. From what I can see, you aren’t yet able to control the Persona behind both of them. And to control that Persona, well, whoever’s taken an interest in you is extremely powerful. I can’t see much beyond that, but don’t take them lightly, whoever they turn out to be.”

“All right, thanks,” she said, offering him the payment. “And nice work, Echo should be useful.”

“I’m glad to be of assistance,” he said, smiling a little.

Despite what she said to Sojiro, she spotted Akechi in Shibuya, waiting on the train. He seemed annoyed at something on his phone. Was he Ultrablack or was he just in contact with the assassin? Making Echo her active Persona, Chou crept up to close behind him before cheerily saying, “Good morning!”

“Gah!” He abruptly lost hold of his phone, leading him to scramble gracelessly to catch it. Once he had it, he glanced back and was surprised. “Oh, Amamiya! You startled me.”

“Seems so,” she said, smiling at him anyhow. “Though you shouldn’t really be surprised to run into somebody in this station.”

Akechi shrugged. “I suppose, just not somebody who’d talk to me.”

Feeling like some others were paying attention, Chou acted cute and said, “Are you so sure of that, Akechi? You’re getting famous after all. One would think that your fans would be eager to greet you.”

“Occasionally,” he said, trying to act humble.

Before he could explain any further, another girl nearby squealed. “Ah, is it really you, Akechi-kun?! I can’t believe it, you’re just as handsome in real life as you are on TV!”

“Um, thank you?” Akechi said, blushing at this.

Just as that girl got hold of his wrist, another girl moved past Chou to grab him too. “Wow, I can’t believe it! Hey, can I get an autographed photo?”

“Yeah, that’d be swell!” the first girl said. And a few others turned to them on hearing the commotion.

“Well, hold on, I might have something on hand,” he said, still acting embarrassed. But even though he was surrounded by his fans, he paused a moment to look back at her. “Oh, but I did want to talk again, Amamiya. Do you want to meet back up after school today?”

Some of the other girls immediately looked jealous. Ignoring them, Chou shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve got a date with somebody tonight. We’ve been discussing all the awesome stuff that the Phantom Thieves have been doing and trying to figure it out.”

Somehow, that gave him confidence. He gave a knowing smile as he said, “Ah, of course. Maybe another time. But then, the Phantom Thieves may have made a misstep recently. You shouldn’t count on them being a factor for very long.”

“If you say so,” Chou said, giving a shrug as the train pulled in.

“Hey, don’t mind her, she’s not your fan,” one of the Akechi fans said. “But what’s this with the Phantom Thieves case now?”

He tried to brush them off with the photos, but then they got him on an open seat to surround him and talk. Chou carefully put herself outside the circle to listen in without being noticed. While Akechi tried to distract them again, the girls pestered and flattered him enough that he finally explained something. He didn’t have official word from the police, but he had word from other sources that nothing had been heard from Kaneshiro or his mafia yet. Given how quickly the other targets had confessed, Akechi believed that unless something came out over the weekend, Kaneshiro might have gotten away. Although his words danced around confirming the lack of a response, something made him confidant that they had failed to steal Kaneshiro’s heart.

That didn’t worry Chou as she knew that they had succeeded. After all, Kaneshiro was a roach, used to hiding out from notice. The guilt would make it difficult, but he might be hiding from even his followers now. It might take longer, but the truth would come out in time. She just had to be patient. It’d be hilarious to see Akechi’s reaction to finding out that she’d succeeded, though.

On getting to class, she recalled that Morgana had been talking about sniffing out a source of distortion in the school. Next week then. It had been minor and could wait. There was some time between the date and the end of school, so Chou went by the Young Occultists meeting to practice fortune telling with the other girls. She demonstrated how a Tarot reading went, then they all messed around with the crystal ball to see how it worked. Mr. Hiruta got them into a discussion on how the human mind tried to find patterns in random events, or faces in a random mess. While Chou had read about such ideas before, it was funny to encourage the others to look for a face in the crystal ball. It wasn’t hard to find and made them giggle about spooking people with it at the festival.

Ann, Shiho and Ryuji had stayed for club too, working with others to come up with goofy fortunes for the box. Excusing themselves to leave early, they went to the restrooms to change for the date. Chou hadn’t had much time to look for date clothes, but she did have the blouse and pants that Ann’s parents had given her. The pants were solid black and slim, while the blouse had a red and white diamond pattern. If it wasn’t for the need for being a phantom, it’d be a nice image for Joker with the mask. It was just too eye-catching for her work in the Metaverse. Chou brushed down her hair and checked it over in the mirror. As it’d been a while since she’d trimmed it, the curliness was falling into disorderly waves instead a bunch of random curves. A few more months and she could tell if the longer look would work for her.

“Oh hey, want to add this to your outfit?” Ann asked, pulling a black tie out of her schoolbag. “You’re already leaning on a masculine style, so this should add a classy touch.”

“Sure, that should look good,” she said, accepting it to tie around her neck. “My last school had a necktie with the uniform, so I remember how to tie it.”

“Well that’s good because I don’t know how to tie them myself,” Ann said, getting out a bag to touch up her make-up.

“Then what did you have it in your bag for?” Once she had the tie on, she took Philemon’s pin to add as an accent. It was a bit more playful to leave it loose, right? That’d fit the image she was trying to project right now rather than using the pin to keep the tie in place.

“I was going to make Ryuji wear it if he came up with something inappropriate to a date,” she explained. “Which is still a risk even if this is just a causal thing. But it’d look goofy with whatever he came up with, don’t you think?”

“It’s a strong possibility.”

Ann nodded. “But it works with what you’ve got. Go ahead and keep it; I couldn’t use it for my personal wardrobe.”

“Thanks, it’s a snazzy touch,” Chou said.

Once she had the make-up on, Ann took her hair out of her usual pigtails and held it back with a headband instead. She gone for an outfit with pants too, something that made Chou think she was like a punk with a feminine pink and purple scheme. It looked really good on her. And when they got back into the hall, they got a surprise when Ryuji wasn’t in a loud or overly casual outfit. It was still simple being a button-up shirt and slacks, but it worked.

“Wow, Ryuji,” Ann said, going over to him. “You actually look like you’re going out on a date!”

Scratching his head, he said, “Well isn’t that what we’re doing? I mean, even if it’s faking it to get something else done, I might as well look the part.”

“I think it suits you,” Chou said.

“Yeah, same for both of you,” Ryuji said. “Though you both seem like rebels dressed like that.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?” Ann said with a grin.

Meanwhile, Chou spotted someone coming down the hall towards them. “Hey, Makoto, you ready to head out too?” she asked, waving her over.

“S-sure,” she said, trying to hide her nervousness with a smile. She still looked prim, with a cute vest over a white shirt, then black stockings with her skirt. But it was adorable. “I wasn’t sure what I should be wearing, so I just picked something simple.”

“Don’t worry, you’re really cute like that,” Ann said, going over to her. “Oh, I know, I have some cute necklaces that might work for you, what color do you like?”

“You have spare necklaces?” Makoto asked, puzzled.

“Of course she does,” Shiho said. “Even if she claims to not be a fashion expert.”

“Well most of them were gifts from companies,” Ann said, shaking her head as she took one out. “I think something vibrant would really pop, like, this clover pendant?”

“That does look really nice,” Makoto said, although she hesitated on taking it. “Is it really okay for me to borrow this?”

“It’s fine, you can just keep it if you like it,” Ann said, giving it to her. “I’ve got another like it back home.”

Once Makoto had it on, she smiled and said, “Thanks, I don’t have much for jewelry. The others are going to meet us in Shibuya, so we should head on over.”

“Oh wait, could I get a picture of you guys first?” Shiho asked, getting her phone out. “You all look so nice, even when it’s unexpected out of Ryuji.”

“Hey, I put in some effort, yeah?” Ryuji said. “But sure, might as well.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Ann said. Shiho got their picture against one of the windows, then they headed out to the station. Since Makoto wasn’t a part of their usual group, Chou found ways to keep the conversation going on the train ride over. It helped to make Makoto feel more at ease, especially when they reassured her that they were along because of the chance to help someone out.

Eiko and Nozomi were waiting on them at the station square with their dates. Nozomi had brought along another senior boy; they seemed like a normal enough couple on a first date, friends for the most part. And among this group of teenagers, there was Tsukasa. He seemed like he might be in his late twenties, dressed in a white and yellow suit like he was some pop star with a tacky wardrobe manager who thought they were being artistic. If they were truly in love, it might not be bad. But he had Eiko’s friend worried, so it merited some investigation.

He didn’t take his sunglasses off when they got inside. It might be a medical condition, but Chou felt like it might be the same as one reason she wore glasses: to obscure expressions. “Nah, it’s nothing weird,” he said upon Makoto’s question.

“I asked what kind of work you do, not if it’s weird,” she said, acting puzzled. From Third Eye, it seemed she was truly acting. Nice, how long could she keep it up?

Tsukasa just chuckled at that and ran his hand through his hair. “Ah, sorry. Guess I get used to people being suspicious, you know? I tell them that I’m a club host and they immediately think I’m some sleezeball trying to manipulate people. But it’s not how things are. The job is an act to entertain, but I know it’s just for the job.”

“Yeah, it’s the same kind of thing with my salon job,” Eiko said. “I act cute and cheerful, and the customers follow the rules. If anybody gets weird about it, the manager kicks them out. People keep saying that it’s dangerous around Shinjuku, but nothing’s happened to me, like with Shibuya.”

“Well just cause nothing’s happening to you doesn’t mean nothing bad’s happening at all,” Ryuji said. “You’ve still got to be careful in some places.”

Eiko shook her head. “You can be too careful and miss out on great things, like Tsukasa! We always have a great time no matter where we are, right?”

“Of course, my princess,” Tsukasa said with a smile. An insincere one that his eyes would call him out on if he wasn’t wearing those sunglasses. Then he leaned over and said in a loud whisper, “But I’ll take you over to Destinyland next time, okay?” Eiko giggled and nodded.

Feeling like outdoing him, Chou smirked and said, “Aw, what makes her your princess? Makoto’s my revolver angel because we make a great team.”

Makoto gasped at that, then blushed, “Ah, ha ha, uh, yeah! That is true, and I can always count on you as my shadowy spotter.”

Eiko laughed again at that, pleased with the show. The others there seemed impressed too, although she might have made Ryuji and the quiet senior boy feel intimidated as they tried to come up with something to match that. Meanwhile, Tsukasa was annoyed and doing his best to cover that up. “Well my princess is a special beauty, don’t you think? She just hasn’t woken up to her full potential.”

“I can as long as I’m with you,” Eiko said, bashful and giddy.

She was certainly infatuated with him, but it seemed he didn’t feel the same.

* * *

Tsukasa had planned on baiting Eiko over the summer. She was a good target: wealthy parents who weren’t paying much attention to her, working as a costumed waitress to get attention, worrying about not being popular enough, and on the brink of not caring about school. Due to that, she’d been hooked immediately. Before long, he could reel her in, have her first, and then sell her off to be sent out of the country. Now was a good time to be looking for a fresh target. Keeping a girl was too much work when all the fun was in luring them in.

A group date was a good opportunity, both to seek out a new target and give her reasons to pull away from these friends here. There were more than he’d expected. And surprisingly, most of them were girls. The two boys could be immediately discounted. While there was a market for underage males, one had to get just the right one to get a good price. On top of that, he had no interest in flirting with a boy. That could be left to others.

Of the girls around him that weren’t already in his trap, there was the blond who was smoking hot. She could fetch a premium price with no pitch whatsoever. However, she was confidant and social, making her a difficult catch. She joked around with the boy she’d come with and encouraged anyone who seemed uncertain. Eiko’s friend Nozomi was a possibility; it was great wedging himself between two friends and making both girls choose him. But she was too suspicious of him and pudgy at that. There was the girl with glasses, but she was way too confidant. Not only that, she was flirting freely with the girl she’d come with and leaned just enough on being masculine that Tsukasa found her unattractive.

But the other girl of that couple… Makoto. She was the most uncomfortable there, unsure of what she was doing and cutely trying to keep up with her date. Based on her talk, she was intelligent but not streetwise. She didn’t have the confidence of the other girls and if that clover necklace was any indication, her family was in some decent money. While short hair wasn’t the best cut for a girl, Makoto was still attractive and feminine. She was the kind of girl for whom modesty would be a wall, but it’d be all the more satisfying to tear that wall down. She might even fetch a better price than Eiko.

When Makoto excused herself, Tsukasa waited a bit, distracted the others with a question to debate, then slipped away as well. He caught her coming out of the bathroom and gave her a warm smile. “Oh, hey, Makoto, I just wanted to say that it’s been real swell talking with you this afternoon. Someone like you ought to be appreciated for her mind as much as her looks.”

That was calculated to have as much impact as possible. And of course, it worked as she looked to him in surprise at the compliment. “Oh, yes, this has been interesting.” Brushing some of her hair back, she added, “I hope the others haven’t been too bothersome in questioning you. You stand out in our group.”

“Eh, I appreciate the concern,” he said. “Say, do you want to exchange phone numbers? I’d love to chat with you some more.”

“Sure, that could be interesting,” Makoto said, offering her number for his.

This summer would be the perfect time to whittle down that modest wall of hers, then snare her just like he was doing to Eiko.

* * *

The date ended when Tsukasa, Eiko, and the senior boy had to all leave for their jobs. The rest of them left the diner and went to the station square to chat without being in the way. “I don’t trust that man,” Ann said. “He acted, I dunno, impersonal around Eiko? He was saying sweet things, but I couldn’t be sure there was real emotion behind it.”

Nozomi nodded. “Right, even though he talked about knowing the boundary of job and private life, he acted generically charming like he probably does at his job. I like him even less now.”

Considering the evening, Makoto nodded too. “He seemed evasive to me. He started right off by saying he wasn’t a bad guy, but then didn’t add much to our discussions. He wasn’t even paying that much attention to Eiko despite having an arm around her. I mean, I know the rest of us are fake dating for this, but I’d think any of the three other ‘couples’ would be more convincing to someone else than Eiko and Tsukasa.” Then she smiled at a thought. “Although Ann and Ryuji kept bickering over things.”

“Hey, I was trying, all right?” Ryuji said with a shrug. “But, uh, we do differ in opinions.”

“You’re good as a friend, but it’d get tiring to date you if it’s going to be like this,” Ann said.

Nozomi smiled at it. “Well even that was more convincing than them.” Then she frowned again. “But how am I going to convince her that he’s not good for her? She’s all giddy and starry-eyed over him even though he treats her so generically.”

Next to her, Chou seemed thoughtful while listening. Then she took her glasses off. Strangely enough, it was quite a difference. She had gray eyes that made her serious expression right then intense. “He’s evasive in every detail to him, even to how he kept his glasses on. I wear my glasses to seem like I’m no trouble because everyone expects me to be trouble; he might be doing the same thing. And even though he made sure to speak to Eiko any time she started to get bored, he seemed to be studying all of us girls.”

“He was studying us?” Ann asked, looking creeped out. “Ew.”

“He gave me his number when we were away from the table,” Makoto said. As soon as she touched her phone, it vibrated. She took it out to see. “Even put his generic sweet act on me despite being with Eiko.”

“Really?” Nozomi asked, upset now with her concern confirmed.

“Of course he’d go after you,” Chou said, then smiled… or was that a confidant smirk? “You put on a good act of lacking confidence there. A predator like him would interpret that as a weakness to target. Just be careful with him knowing your number.”

“Of course, I wanted to observe what he does,” she said, although it made her feel more confidant in this plan. Then she checked on the message. “Hmm, he’s sent me a text already.”

“Then he really is a sleezeball who’s taking advantage of Eiko,” Nozomi said. “But what do we do about him?”

“Couldn’t we report him to the police?” Ryuji suggested.

“If we get the right evidence, yes,” Makoto said, then frowned. “What is this supposed to mean? He’s already calling me Mako-chan, saying that he couldn’t wait to text me, but there’s all these pictures.”

Being by her, Chou leaned over to see. “Ah, an emoji abuser. That’s most certainly the sign of a heinous criminal, of the grammatical sort at least.”

It made the rest of them laugh. “Eiko does that too,” Nozomi said. “But it fits her. That just like he’s trying to pass himself off as a high schooler.”

“I’ll keep track of these conversations and have them available to turn over if needed,” Makoto said, putting her phone away. “The tricky part is going to be convincing Eiko that he’s trouble. She’s not the most rational person around.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Nozomi said, then bowed. “Thank you all for helping. Maybe having enough people worried about her will make her see that she’s wrong.”

“Sure,” Ann said. “And if you need help talking with her, we’ll try to help out there too.”

They split up not long after, but Chou hung around a bit longer. “You be careful too, especially if that guy asks you to meet up or something,” she said.

Makoto nodded. “Right. Oh and I want to thank you for helping out too. That was a really different experience and I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself if you weren’t there.”

Still having her glasses off, she smiled and her eyes seemed soft. “No problem. And hey, at least you know now that the group dating scene isn’t for you.”

“Definitely,” she said, feeling more relaxed. “Hey, do you need those glasses at all?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I got them just before I moved to Tokyo. At the time, I thought that they’d help people not be suspicious of me.” She put them back on and for a moment, the reflection of streetlights made her eyes difficult to see. “You don’t expect a person with glasses to be dangerous, right? But then it didn’t matter because everyone heard about my arrest anyhow. I’m just used to them now.”

“That would’ve been clever if not for those rumors,” Makoto said. “And, well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope we can stay as friends rather than girlfriends. I just don’t see you that way.”

“It’s fine,” Chou said. Although, was she disappointed? Her glasses might be hiding that now. “Actually, it’s surprising we got to be friends at all. It’s fun and you’re pretty cool.”

Nodding, something occurred to Makoto; she hoped it came across right. “Yeah, you’ve changed my thinking on a lot of things. Although now that I think of it, you made it hard for any guy who tries to charm me cause they’d have to outmatch you.”

She grinned at that. “Well I’m glad that worked. See you at school then.”

“Right, see you later,” Makoto said.

Though if she did find a guy interested in her who was as charming and witty as Chou, Makoto would feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

* * *

‘Well that was disappointing,’ Arsene said. Although he was probably speaking for her Shadow rather than himself.

‘No kidding,’ she thought. Makoto was pretty and it was fun opening her eyes to the world around her. And today, it had been wonderful to see her show some trickster aspects too, all for helping someone else. Still, she could count herself lucky that Makoto explained things clearly and still wanted to be friends. She could be more like a sister now.

But then, what now? Chou had been hoping that Makoto might want to keep hanging out after the date and make it real. It was disappointing, but not upsetting… but what to do now? Yoshida didn’t seem to be around, perhaps because it was raining a little; they’d been lucky that past Sunday evenings hadn’t been too rainy. Maybe she could help out Iwai? He’d been a big help to her this week.

First, though… she took her phone to text Shiho. ‘Got some good news for you: Ann and Ryuji definitely see each other as friends more than dating material.’

It didn’t take long to get a reply. ‘Oh thank goodness. How did it go?’

Chou: Well they were ribbing each other a lot, but there weren’t any sparks between them.

Chou: They even said they felt that way.

Shiho: That’s good, so we can all continue on as friends. I just have to find some way to tell her how all I feel.

Chou: I’ll be there to help you out, any time.

Shiho: Thanks.

Shiho: Oh, here’s the picture I took, in case you want a copy.

Shiho: How’d it go with you and Makoto?

Chou: We’re still friends too, and we got some evidence on the guy being a problem.

Chou: But the tougher task is going to be convincing Eiko that she should drop him.

Shiho: I hope you guys can help her out.

As it seemed the chat was done, an argument nearby caught her attention. Others were doing their best to ignore the man and woman there, but she recognized the latter as being Ohya. “Of course I’m doing my work,” she said, angered and sober this time. “I’ve put out plenty of articles the past few months, haven’t I? So what’s your problem?”

“The problem is that I put you off politics and you’re not supposed to be reporting on that anymore,” he said in a demanding way. There was something off to him, perhaps some distortion. “But that’s what you’ve been doing in all your spare time, hasn’t it? You are to drop that case and focus on your assigned work.”

Ohya frowned; she didn’t want to give up, but she probably didn’t want to lose her job either. Not sure if it would help but wanting to try anyhow, Chou went over to them. “Oh, Ichiko-chan! There you are.” She then looked over as if noticing the man for the first time. “Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?”

“Who are you?” he asked, glowering at her just because she was there.

“She’s one of my informants for youth articles,” Ohya said, glancing at her. She raised an eyebrow, then got a sparkle to her eye. Looking serious, she then turned to him. “And as you might guess, we’re dating.”

“What?” Her boss was caught off guard with that lie. But, he didn’t seem to notice it as a lie.

“I was trying to keep it under wraps because she’s still in high school,” Ohya said, putting her hands on her hips. “But you’ve caught us together, so yeah, she’s why I’m not available sometimes. It’s personal business, though, so keep out of it, will you?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, but then explained it as, “because what kind of person would be attracted to a body like yours?”

Ohya narrowed her eyes but didn’t say anything. Speaking for her, Chou said, “Well you clearly have poor taste in women. Hey, are we going to go catch that movie tonight?”

“Sure, let’s get going,” Ohya said, then headed off without saying goodbye.

“You’d best fulfill your quota!” her boss called after them to get the last word.

As they went down the stairs, Ohya sighed. “What a jerk. Well thanks for that, Chou. Just understand, I’m still dedicated to Kayo.”

“That’s fine,” she said, feeling like she’d rather have that reassurance over a joke. “He was being rude.”

“He used to be a good boss, but he’s gotten terrible lately,” Ohya said. “Anyhow, want to come over to Shinjuku anyhow? I had some news for Lala-chan; you might be interested in it too. And I do need any info on something writable, if you had anything.”

“Depends on what you want to hear,” Chou said. “The Phan-Site has been really busy because of the calling cards about Kaneshiro the other day. But I got to talk to Akechi here in the station earlier, you know, the Detective Prince guy.”

“You know him?” she asked, curious. “But aren’t you a fan of the Phantom Thieves?”

“Of course. But my school had a social studies trip out to the TV station one day when he was on a show there, and somehow my questions interested him. Anyhow, just this morning, he acknowledged the calling cards but seemed really confidant that they’d made a mistake. Apparently, there had been no news from the police on anything connected to Kaneshiro yet.”

“Well it’s not been that long since the cards were posted,” Ohya said. “And of what I know of him, Kaneshiro is like a cockroach, keeping to the darkness and hiding out at the least sign of trouble.”

Chou nodded. “Yeah, some of the other confessions took time to show up.”

At the ticket desk, Ohya paid fares for both of them this time. “Besides, even if he’s a criminal, Kaneshiro is not going to be an idiot. He’s probably all too aware of what happened to the Hashimotos and is keeping quiet for the moment whether his heart was stolen or not.”

“I hope honest news does come out about that,” she said. “People might mistake no news as meaning that they failed.”

“The honest part will be the problem,” Ohya said. “So is all the chatter about that?”

“No, there’s been discussions about how many of the Phantom Thieves there are, as well as about the Personas that people are getting. Apparently, having a Persona can protect you from a mental shutdown or a psychotic break, or even the theft of your heart by way of the Metaverse.”

“Oh really? Now that would get attention.” They kept discussing that and other potential articles on the train ride over.

There were a few people in Crossroads, but the stools at the counter weren’t taken. Lala-chan smiled on seeing them come in. “Well now, what are you two coming in together for?”

“Just for a chat, I ran into her in Shibuya,” she said. “Oh, and just keep calling Ichiko if you want. It might help if my boss is a pest again.”

“Sure thing,” Chou said, sitting at the counter with her.

“So what’ll it be tonight?” Lala-chan asked, getting a clean glass.

“Tea for both of us will be fine,” Ichiko said, resting her head on her hand.

“Really?” Lala-chan asked in surprise, shifting to get two teacups instead. “Well that’s better than some nights when you get plastered in here, but what’s up?”

“You know how I had some people helping out my investigation? We found Kayo.” Despite that, she wasn’t happy about it.

“What happened to her?” Lala asked, still working on the tea but watching them.

“She had a mental shutdown and doesn’t respond to anything at all,” Ichiko said. “Not even when I called her name and took her hand. Somebody found her staring off into space at the beach early that morning she vanished. If she wasn’t found then, the tide might’ve made her slip and drown. The hospital didn’t even know who she was until my coworker contacted them.”

“But if she’s had a shutdown, then we’ll never known what really happened,” Lala said. “It’s nice to know she’s alive, although terrible that it’s like this.”

“No, there’s still a chance,” she said. “At least in finding out the truth and clearing her name. I got her hairpin; there’s a hidden camera on it that she was wearing to record her meeting. It’s been sitting around for months, but the data should still be good. I’ve got someone analyzing it to extract the footage.”

“It should help,” Lala said, then offered them their teas.

“Did your boss find out?” Chou asked.

“Not exactly,” Ichiko said, frowning now. “But he suspects that I’m still investigating that case. If he finds out about the hairpin camera, he can and will put a stop to that. He’s already doubled my quota trying to keep me busy.”

“Is that why you’re not drinking tonight?” Lala asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s just, Kayo was trying to get me to cut back, you remember? So I really want a drink to clear my head, but then I think of seeing her like that in the hospital,” then she sighed. “I just can’t do it. But I will clear her name! I don’t care if he fires me; I can get another job. But I’ve got to hang onto this position until I’ve got the information I need.”

“Well don’t overwork yourself, Ichiko-chan,” Lala said, patting her hand.

“You can still make the truth clear to everyone,” Chou said to encourage her too.

“I will,” Ichiko said firmly. “Who knows? It might even be worthwhile to become a freelance writer so I won’t be held back by restrictions. Anyhow, thanks again for bailing me out earlier. But what were you doing out dressed up all sassy like this?”

She wanted a momentary diversion, most likely, a mental break from all she’d been dealing with without turning to alcohol. And of anybody Chou could talk to, it might be least awkward to complain about things with these two. “It’s not that big of a deal, but I had a date with a cute girl that didn’t work out quite as I hoped for.”

“That sucks,” Ichiko said, sympathizing with her.

“I mean, I’m glad she went out with me once,” Chou said. “It’s kinda complicated, but it was a fake date to try helping out a classmate of hers. And she wants to be friends with me still; she’s cool so I like hanging out with her. But I was hoping she might consider making it real too.”

“I’m sure you’ll have another chance, especially if you’d consider guys too like me,” Ichiko said. “You just ooze charm when you want to and talks with you are never boring. Sometime, you’re sure to attract somebody who’s gonna be really special to you.”

“Certainly,” Lala agreed brightly. “Just respect their feelings and it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, it just sucks right now,” Chou said. “But tomorrow’s another day.”

“It always is,” Ichiko said, seeming thoughtful at the phrase.


	63. Joker's Portrait

6/26

To S. Niijima:

I have reviewed your query and the information that came with it, along with consulting a few others experienced in supernatural cases. While we cannot say with absolute certainty without being in Tokyo, we believe there is a strong possibility that these cases have a connection to the supernatural. This can be seen in the frequent pattern of psychological illnesses and changes in otherwise healthy individuals. The black discharge is a particularly strong sign of this.

My duties would keep me here in Sumaru City, but I can send the police detective under me who has the most experience with supernatural cases to Tokyo to assist you, along with a few of our associates that we trust. I am sending along some information on them; they are curious enough about this that they may come over to Tokyo on their own. If they decide against the investigation, we’ll send along a report in the next month.

On a specific point, I can confirm that the Joker in the Phantom Thieves of Dreams cannot be the one we dealt with in Sumaru. That man died in a museum fire back then and even if he survived, the details differ. I’ve sent along some information on him to confirm this. Also, there were multiple Jokers we dealt with that are not often reported. They still do not match as the lesser Jokers were afflicted with symptoms similar to the psychotic breakdowns you’ve noted. There is also an original Joker that somewhat preceded the man we dealt with. However, it is completely impossible that you are dealing with that one as he is primarily a local myth. I’ve still sent along some data on the lesser Jokers and the mythic Joker because when it comes to the supernatural, myths and rumors have more power than one would expect.

I hope this information helps to guide your investigations better.

From K. Suou

According to the data Chief Suou had sent along, the cases were indeed similar but not immediately connected. The one Joker they knew about wore a crude mask made of a paper bag and was a lunatic who summoned demons and started fires. The strongest connector aside from the name was the method to ‘summon’ Joker for vengeance. The lesser Jokers… it was a similar parallel to the psychotic breaks as the Apathy Syndrome victims were to mental shutdown victims. And perhaps, like a cold to a flu, similar but different. As for the mythic Joker, he also had the odd phone summons, but for the sake of granting wishes at the risk of vanishing from the world. The mythic Joker dressed in a harlequin style in white and purple, whereas the current Tokyo Joker was noted for dressing in black and red.

These were similar phenomenon, but different circumstances. In that case, the experienced investigation team would be a valuable asset to these cases. But how to assist them out of view of the Director? Sae would have to warn them upfront about how they were being walled. If the outside team investigated, they could be targeted by whatever powers were in control here. That would have to be discussed when (or if) the team came.

For now, the pictures were interesting in light of some news she’d gotten: an art museum in Ueno had just opened a student exhibition where Madarame’s student Kitagawa had a portrait of Tokyo’s Joker displayed. She took the pictures of the lunatic Joker and the mythic Joker in her briefcase, made sure she had files for other cases being investigated, then headed out to catch a train for Ueno. She spotted Akechi on her way down the stairs to the lobby; he seemed to be leaving the building as well. Was he one of those walling them off? Or, was he being walled as well? Case files kept turning up with his name attached to them and the public was paying attention when he spoke.

He spotted her at the midway point down. “Ah, hello Niijima-san,” he said with a bright smile as he waited on her to catch up. “How has your work been going?”

“As usual,” she said. “You’re still looking into those Phantom Thieves, right?”

He nodded. “Yes, we’re quite sure they made a blunder with that last set of calling cards. There’s been not a peep from the Shibuya mafia.”

“I wouldn’t count on no news being good news,” Sae said. “Even if that was a mistake, I’ve got a new opening on their identities.”

“And what would that be?” he said, giving her a neutral interest.

“A portrait of Joker.”

That got him curious enough to change his plans and follow her over to the Ueno art museum. The student exhibit seemed to have gone largely unnoticed by the general public so far. While there was a decent crowd in the museum, it didn’t seem unusual for a Sunday morning. Once news broke to the fans of the Phantom Thieves, there’d surely be a larger crowd. It made this a good time to drop by and see it for themselves.

So far, nothing had been done to mark this painting as anything special out of the lot. If there was going to be some awards out of this exhibit, they hadn’t gone up yet. Joker’s portrait did stand out for the unusual shape of the painting, what with the jagged edges of surreal scenery framing the portrait instead of neat clean edges. But the subject itself, Joker and his Persona, was both standard and not overtly distinctive. Joker had youthful signs to his hair and body structure; there was a good chance he was between fifteen and thirty years old, perhaps older if he dyed his hair and kept fit. The hair was normal to someone of a Japanese heritage, or even just generally Asian. Due to the mask, there was no way to see his face and his eyes were shadowed. He had his red gloved hand out as if offering to help the viewer up.

The Persona contrasted Joker’s gesture. The two were chained together by metal and flames, with the devilish Persona giving a grin that was reminiscent of the mythic Joker picture. Although, the Persona had a red suit and a tall top hat, not a harlequin costume. According to her research, Personas were a guardian spirit, manifesting as a representation of the face that the person presented to the world. Which meant that despite the altruistic portrayal, Joker could still revel in being a defiant devil figure who might offer freedom to victims, but had ulterior motives to his actions.

Of course, this was an artist’s depiction like the mythic Joker, not a photograph like the arsonist Joker. Said artist was a student artist, was one of those that Joker had saved, and had only met Joker through dreams. There was a strong chance that this was more fanciful than realistic. “This will be how the public sees Joker in their minds once it gets popular attention,” she thought aloud.

“Indeed,” Akechi said, having his hand to his chin. “Quite a striking image, but worrisome at the same time. Someone who hides their face like that could be telling bold-faced lies or mocking you, and there’d be no way to tell.”

“The Persona makes him seem more like a villain than a hero,” Sae said.

“Oh, you know about Personas?” he asked, acting surprised.

But he had to know too. “Of course. I did some research into the term when it kept popping up in the witness testimonies surrounding the Phantom Thieves. This one looks like a devil out to torment sinners. But it’s still a devil chained to hell.”

“I meant it as Joker being defiant to any chains being put on him,” someone said near them. Sae quickly recognized him as Yusuke Kitagawa, the artist of this piece. “That’s how he struck me in those dreams. Someone is trying to chain Joker to fate and he will not accept that as a possibility.”

A delinquent of some kind? They had suspected that, at the very least someone who did not go along with society’s rules. “He’s a dangerous figure,” Sae said.

“He presents himself like a gentleman thief,” Akechi said, still studying the painting. “But as a devil as well, hmm… perhaps he enjoy the torment he causes his targets.”

“His targets often deserve it,” Kitagawa said. “But putting aside what you may think of Joker and the Phantom Thieves, what do you think of the artwork itself? I am trying to improve my skills and depict what I see.”

Sae shook her head. “Sorry, I’m no expert in art. It colors the profile we have of Joker a little, but such second-hand influences must be limited.”

“It looks like a publicity poster for an action show,” Akechi said. “It’ll be appealing, but a bit out of place here, I think.”

“I see,” Kitagawa said, disappointed and thoughtful.

“It is good work,” Sae said, unsure of what else to say. “Good day.”

There were other things to accomplish today. Before long, Akechi followed after her for her opinion on another case.

* * *

Out of place here? Perhaps… although, he was sure other students had submitted works that ‘a publicity poster’ might refer to. It just sounded so crass, like something produced for a quick profit that could be thrown away when it was unwanted. That wasn’t the kind of artist he was! At least, not what he wanted to be. He was out to capture true beauty and touch the hearts of others. Although, the goal of this particular work was different than that.

After the pair left, someone else approached him. “Sorry I had to duck out there,” Chou said. “But it’s better for those two not to see me here.”

“Those two are with the police?”

She nodded. “The woman is Sae Niijima, a public prosecutor that I suspect is interested in building a case against the Phantom Thieves. And the boy was Goro Akechi, an amateur detective who’s said that he wants to uncover the Thieves and get them arrested before he graduates high school. He’s a senior, so he’s got about two more semesters for that.”

“Ah, so those were two dangerous people to you,” Yusuke said. “I can’t imagine what that’s like, neither for the detectives hunting down criminals from tiny clues nor for the thieves who endeavor to leave no such clues behind. It all sounds so stressful.”

Without worry of the wrong people overhearing them now, she answered, “It is stressful, but an exciting kind of stress that pushes you to always do your best. Like, I know I can’t let my guard down even if it seems safe.” Then she chuckled. In that moment, he could see that devilish side of her that the prosecutor worried about. “Like the deal with Kaneshiro now. He’s hiding out for some reason and that’s got them thinking I made a mistake. But we didn’t.”

He gave it some thought, then nodded. “I see, so tricking them is a small victory, but not one you can get careless about. Still, I don’t think I’d like to live in that kind of cat and mouse game.”

“That’s normal,” she said. “What did they say about your painting?”

“Well they said that it colored their profiling, but wasn’t something they could rely on. Then that Akechi said it was like a action show promotion poster. That’s rather low brow for art.”

“Is it bad?” Chou asked. “People love posters and collect them.”

“I suppose,” he said, then shrugged. “It just doesn’t seem like art.”

“So what is art?” she asked.

What was art? That was a very basic question, one that he might have ignored for being so basic. “Um, I’m not sure how to answer that. Does promotional art count as actual art?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” she continued. “Some of it is quite nice. I know people who’ve taken great care of such posters for years.”

“I always heard of commercial art spoken about derisively,” he said. Mostly from Madarame saying that being a commercial artist was grunt work. “But I might still learn something from observing it.”

She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “Anyhow, those two are very unlikely to know much about art. And Akechi will put others down while acting innocent, I’ve heard of him doing that before. So I wouldn’t take opinions from them, especially him, too deeply. Though they are my enemies.”

“Then of course you would feel that way,” Yusuke said. Maybe they had been trying to get an image of the mouse they were after. However, Chou thought it was fine and he had made sure it didn’t look precisely like her. Her not being there when Niijima and Akechi were was a wise precaution, though.

Others came in and Yusuke tried to figure out what they thought of his painting. Some visitors talked with each other and could be overheard, while others had to be questioned. Unfortunately, most of them couldn’t give him a good critique. He got a lot of vague words like cool, strange, ominous, and insightful, things like Madarame would say and never explain. These people had the excuse of perhaps not knowing enough about art to give a good critique. But those who did know enough like his teachers and fellow students just kept saying that he was doing fine. Perhaps he was? But other paintings here were getting people to gather more and look at them longer. How was he really doing?

Later, Rio came in with a distinguished looking old man. “Hey, I’m glad we caught you here,” she said with a big smile. She was looking a lot better than before with a healthier glow, new clothes, and a new haircut. She then introduced the two of them to the man with her: Akiko Kawanabe, the director of the Japanese Art Support Program.

“I’m glad to meet you all,” Kawanabe said. “I taught with Madarame before he retired from the university, but I didn’t realize what he’d been doing the past couple of decades. It was a very misguided cruelty, but I can see it happening with the things we talked about.”

“About how hard it is to get resources as an artist?” Chou asked. “We talked about it.”

“That was one topic we discussed a lot,” he said. “I came up with a different conclusion, to connect struggling artists with patrons to help them get started, along with making sure the artist’s education includes more practical skills to support themselves in time.”

Rio nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been going to his class for that. It’s already helped me get a job, one that’ll become full time once I get through the class. I should be able to get my own apartment by the end of the year too.”

That was quite a contrast from Madarame’s methods forcing her out on the street to basically die in obscurity. “That’s wonderful for you,” Yusuke said.

Smiling in excitement, she said, “It is, and I figured he could help you too even though you’re still in school.”

“Yes, I’d like to help all of you who were studying under Madarame, to get the acknowledgment you deserve. I have a class for high schoolers like yourself while you’d be on summer break, for things like personal budgeting, job applications, and the business side of art.”

“That sounds useful,” he said. “We were just discussing the merit of commercial art, actually, since someone compared this piece of mine to that.”

“Commercial art is useful to an artist, as the basis of a regular income,” Kawanabe said, looking over at Joker’s portrait.

“It does look awesome,” Rio said. “Like getting the viewer excited about a new hero. And this is how I remember him from those dreams! He’s got mysterious powers and could be dangerous, but he seeks to help others. Some of this is his own design, but you worked with it nicely. I like the style contrast between the surreal settings and the portrait itself. This is the one you did out of gratitude to them, huh?”

The director was studying the portrait himself, so Yusuke nodded. “Yes. They’ve had some negative publicity that keeps being repeated, so I wanted to show how I saw their leader.”

“Then it is already a promotional art piece,” Rio said. “But it accomplishes your goal in making it! That’s something you can be proud of.”

“Indeed, this is a good portrait,” Kawanabe said. “Were you experimenting with the canvas extensions?”

“Yes, the idea came up during a class lecture.”

“It could benefit from some more experimentation and adjustment for the strongest impact, but it works with the design fine. A commercial piece would want a standard size and shape for easier reproduction. As it is, it’s quite impressive. The line work in the scenery is clean and well done. The composition has a lot of personality too. These Personas are representative of the person, correct?”

“They’re representative of the face you show the world,” Chou said. “And often a hint of what you can be.”

The director nodded. “Rio pointed out one of the strong points here, the contrast between the Persona and Joker even though they’re the same individual. Knowing what a Persona is, it makes one consider the kind of complex personality being portrayed here. You’ve done well.”

“Thank you,” Yusuke said, feeling some relief. This man should be a good judge of art… and yet, there was a question of if he might be acting nice. The portrait could be better, in Yusuke’s mind. Maybe it was that the background was too busy and needed stronger clues to direct the eye. Or maybe the extensions needed more work, or maybe he could figure out whatever made it seem commercial and tone it down. Although, Rio was also right in that this was a publicity piece too. Any second attempt would need Chou’s approval as well.

Rio and the director spoke with them a bit longer on how Yusuke could apply for the program’s assistance and classes, then left on other plans. He and Chou stuck around, though, gathering more opinions and checking out other student works to discuss. As the clock got to noon, another pair approached them. “Oh hey Chou!” the girl said. She wore a character-print tee of a pumpkin-headed ghoul, blue jeans, and orange sneakers. “Did you hear about the cool thing here?”

Giving a shrug, Chou replied, “Hi Suzy, and you were Geist, right? I came to check out my friend’s latest artwork, though it might just be what you’re looking for.”

The boy, who nodded to acknowledge himself as Geist, certainly made himself appear to be ghostly with the pale make-up and all black clothes. “Yes, then you’re Kitagawa-san? I go to Kosei too and heard about your portrait of Joker from club members in the fine art department.”

“I did use some studio classes to work on it,” Yusuke said. “Then you two are fans of the Phantom Thieves?”

“Of course!” Suzy said cheerily. “You might even say we started the Phan-dom! I made the Phan-Site and Geist helped out in acquiring a domain and a server. Of course, I’ve had to bring in some others to clean up my work and help moderate, but we’re making sure it all runs smooth. And when Geist mentioned there was a portrait of Joker around now from someone who definitely saw him, I had to come right away and see! So where is it?”

“In the other room, not far from here,” Yusuke said, leading the way over there. “But then, you haven’t seen Joker yourself?”

“Nope,” Suzy said. “I haven’t been directly helped by them either.”

“Then why’d you start the Phan-Site?” Chou asked. “It’s cool, but Yuuki might’ve made a similar site before you if he’d had the time.”

“It was destiny that somebody made it,” she said in a loud whisper, as if telling a secret. But then she laughed. “Maaaaybe, but honestly, it was an off-shoot of my fiddling with the Young Occultist forum. We were gathering up evidence on patterns of supernatural activities, especially the spikes when ghosts, demons, and other strange phenomenon manifest. And then out of nowhere, somebody went declaring that they were going to steal an abusive teacher’s distorted heart through their dreams. Not only did they succeed, but dozens of mysterious things emerged around the story that might best be explained by the occult. So I thought, this is amazing and a great way to open people’s eyes, and so I made the Phan-Site.”

“Then you’re most interested in your own agenda?” Yusuke asked, not sure how he felt about it. There had been some good conversations on the Phan-Site that he’d been involved in. While there were some bad posts due to the anonymous nature of the site, he’d found good support and encouragement there too.

Suzy smiled at the question. “Well yeah, but I am truly a fan! They do such incredible things and lots of people get their voice heard on the site; I tell the moderators to make sure that people who post like that don’t get bullied. I haven’t been in a really bad situation myself, but I know what it’s like to not be taken seriously for something important. So for the people who are in bad situations, I just want them to be taken seriously and helped.”

“As they should be,” Chou said.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t give him insightful critique on the portrait. They did like it and asked to put a photo copy on the Phan-Site once the exhibit as over. That was fine as it would give the portrait more exposure. Then in an unexpected move, Suzy and Geist offered to hang out with them. “We’re going to grab lunch and then play laser tag,” Suzy said.

“That sounds fun,” Chou said. Then she looked at him. “You ever play laser tag before?”

“No, what’s that?” Yusuke asked. Any childhood games he’d participated in had been art related.

Geist explained, “There’s an old warehouse that has been redone into a maze. The staff gives you AR goggles and laser guns, and then you play tag with other players or virtual foes. For us, it’s good training for when demons do show up.”

“It’s fun too,” Suzy said. “What most people play it for. And this summer, they have a special spooky course! They say it’s to test your courage, but I’m hoping the ghosts are cute.”

“Hmm, they have augmented reality?” Chou asked. “That’s interesting. Do they redesign the interior to match the AR assets?”

Suzy nodded. “Yup, they have some good artists on the team.”

Artists… for augmented reality? “Huh, that would be interesting to experience.”

“Yeah, we’ll come along,” Chou said.

And it was a good experience, seeing how commercial art could be used along with the different style it presented.

* * *

The laser tag was just as Suzy and Geist had said: fun and good practice. The facility had done their best to make the AR course scary, with jump scares and unsettling ghost designs. However, it was nothing compared to what she’d seen in the Palaces. It was a good place to keep in mind. While the gun physics weren’t as realistic as Gun About, hunting ghosts in the AR maze was good practice too. Mementos was the best area for practice, but these places didn’t risk injury.

As they were heading out, Suzy held her up a moment. “You know Yuuki, right? Is he dating anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” Chou said. “We meet up with some other friends for lunch most days, so I’m sure I would’ve heard something.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Do you think he’d like laser tag? I haven’t gone out with anybody, so I’ve been thinking over what to do.”

“I haven’t known him long, but it should be fine,” she said. “You want me to help out?”

She chuckled. “Sure, that could be fun. Ask him when he’s available sometime this week, please? I’ll give you my number so we can exchange info.”

“I’ll do that,” Chou said, taking out her phone. This should help matters. “He’s a nice guy, but I like him as a friend.”

“He’s been helping me learn more about programming,” Suzy said with a smile just a bit different from her usual energy. “It’s crazy, but my parents are completely convinced that computer skills are useless to a girl. No matter how many times I tried telling them that computer skills are super valuable these days to anybody, they won’t listen.”

She was… another Moon arcana. Chou nodded. “That is crazy. Are they anti-technology nuts?”

“Kinda,” she said. “They’ve gotten involved in some kooky Assembly of the Divine Powers too. Then my classmates in the computer science classes think I’m weird for being interested in the occult. But Yuuki’s cool about it because he’s got the same interests.”

“It’s a good weird,” she said. “I like people like that.”

Suzy chuckled. “Yeah, me too! And whoa, didn’t mean to dump all that on you all of a sudden. But you’re a cool person too; I feel like I could talk to you about anything.”

“I’ll keep quiet on this,” Chou said. “Promise.” After all, if this worked out between them, she wouldn’t need to keep evading Yuuki asking her out.

She checked her messages on splitting up with Suzy and found one from Yoshida. He wanted to know if she was available for a bit longer than usual because someone had invited him out to get sushi; this person was interested in having her come along. Was that normal for political meetings? Chou replied that it was fine and she’d be on the next train over.

This week, more people stuck around to listen to Yoshida. Was it because he’d mentioned the Phantom Thieves last time? The audience seemed more curious than before; the skeptics were still there, but they were listening this time. Maybe Yoshida’s fortunes were turning around. He didn’t falter at all tonight, addressing the concerns about public servants like the police being corrupt. But then he turned it around to be about honoring the ones who kept honor and making sure they were rewarded appropriately. While the skeptics remained skeptical, others were left thinking about his message.

They then caught a train to a whole other part of Tokyo. Due to the time of day, they were able to get some seats and discuss keeping confidant and assertive throughout a speech. It was something even he had trouble with at times, and Chou wanted to get over her own nervousness with being the main person speaking. However, the best thing to do to get over it was to start giving speeches. The fortune telling might help too, since she’d have to interpret the cards and weave a story for the questioners. But where to start that… Chihaya wouldn’t be giving regular fortunes for a while yet and Chou wanted to get past this hurdle before the festival came around. Maybe at lunch with her friends? But what could she talk with them about when they didn’t know she was also Joker?

The sushi place they went to was clearly a high class place, far more so than Fisher’s Delight. It wasn’t far from the Diet Building, surrounded by similarly high class establishments. Even the tank for today’s fish was large and beautifully decorated. As they had arrived before the person who invited them, they sat on a bench outside to continue their discussion.

Which led Yoshida to bring up an interesting point. “You know, I got the idea for today’s speech from a police officer in Shibuya. The Phantom Thieves called out the leader of the Shibuya mafia this week and in doing so, they planted a large pile of fake money outside of the main Shibuya station. Kaneshiro’s face and name was on each bill and several people got photos of the incident. Although, no one caught the one who’d planted the bills there.”

“I saw pictures of that on the Phan-Site,” Chou said. “It was a strong statement.”

He nodded. “Due to that unspoken statement, the police in Shibuya have come under suspicion for this calling out. A number of them had to be paid off with hush money in order for the mafia to have been operating as it was. However, I also know several officers in Shibuya who are fine upstanding citizens. One of them approached me this week to get some advice on government officials to contact about an operation they were planning. I can’t give away details of this, mind you, but I wanted to assure the people in Shibuya that not all of the police there are bad.”

Was this about Kaneshiro not giving an immediate confession? It might be the same detective that Iwai trusted, or these two officers worked together. Then were they asking Yoshida for help in keeping Kaneshiro’s arrest quiet until some point? That might keep the mafia leader safe from Shido long enough for Kaneshiro to speak against him. It might even keep the truth out of Akechi’s hearing. Excellent, just as she’d hoped.

Chou kept that feeling to herself, though. “That’s a good idea. Like you said, we need to honor those who remain honorable in the face of temptation.”

“What are your thoughts around those calling cards and Kaneshiro?” he asked curiously.

“Well I know fans who are eager to see what comes of the cards,” Chou said. “I am curious about how the Phantom Thieves can track down these criminals that escape police notice. And how they can pull off those stunts unseen; Shibuya always seems busy, but they’ve posted cards around that neighborhood twice now without being seen. The calling cards were enough to get people to post testimonies against the Shibuya mafia online. From those stories, I think he’s another person who deserves to be targeted by the Phantom Thieves. He destroyed the lives of many people just for money.”

“The Phantom Thieves have well earned their chosen name,” Yoshida agreed.

At that point, the man they were waiting on arrived. It was Benzo Kuramoto, the young Dietman. They spoke for a while on speaking and debate topics. From that, Chou could tell that Benzo was knowledgeable about such subjects and more. He must have studied for his position and had good experience. He might not feel confidant about it, similar to how Ann didn’t feel too confidant about her fashion sense due to her parents. Or perhaps, the request for lessons did have an ulterior motive. The sushi was excellent, though.

Benzo finished his sushi first; he seemed to feel pressed for time. “There is something I called on you to discuss, about some of the party’s plans.”

“Do you need me to head out?” Chou asked.

“No, I wanted you to hear this too,” Benzo said. “It’s something that wouldn’t be bad to hear a regular citizen’s opinion on, even a high schooler. There’s a group who have been discussing splitting from the main party and this time, it’s highly likely to happen.”

“Is that so?” Yoshida said, looking thoughtful. “It’s not new, but it’s good to be aware of. Who’s leading this offshoot plan?”

“That would be Councilman Shido,” Benzo said. “And he’s not just drawing followers from the ruling party. He’s trying to create a group from all sides, called the Liberal Co-Prosperity Party. It’s not been made official, but it’s being talked about by everyone in the Diet.”

“Sounds like some mass-market appeal name,” Chou said.

“It does have some ring of that,” Yoshida said. “What are their stated goals?”

“Well, I can’t discuss all of that with outsiders,” Benzo said. “But they say they want to cross common divisions and find new solutions to old problems. They emerged with the debates over the new Minister of Transport and how some factions couldn’t accept the decision and move on. They kept claiming that the reports that got the old Minister fired were fabricated.”

“Did they have proof of their arguments?” Yoshida asked.

“Supposedly, yes,” he said. “I wasn’t on the committee that examined the case, so I haven’t seen it for myself. But on the new party, Shido has been speaking with just about everyone working in the Diet to ascertain their positions. He even came to the hospital to discuss matters with Grandfather. He and his close followers have been making intriguing offers and arguments, so his new party should grow quickly. Grandfather, myself, and a few others of our circle have been discussing if we should join them or stick to our positions. Shido has made some good proposals, but it’s still a drastic move.”

While listening to him, Chou used Third Eye to see what she could about him. Benzo seemed to be having some doubt but what exactly he doubted wasn’t something she could pin down. He fell under the Heirophant arcana; he was probably loyal to his Grandfather to a fault, but might be thinking for himself a little. He was trying to persuade them; they could persuade him to think more for himself.

“What would be best for the people you represent?” Yoshida asked. “Whatever offers were made, it would be disingenuous if a change of party does not reflect what your constituents want.”

That caused him some embarrassment, but he did his best to cover over it. “Yes… things are rarely simple, but it’s an important idea to keep in mind. It’s going to be a major change we all need to be aware of, and plan how to respond to. We were reviewing a number of subjects, including your case years ago. We need to set things straight, and in your case, we’re willing to correct the false accusations to have you with us.”

Yoshida seemed uncertain of this. “Is that so?”

Now that he’d made the offer, Benzo felt more comfortable, like there was a script he was remembering. “You don’t need to decide on this now, since the party split may not happen for a few months. But we would love to have you back with the party. Think it over. I’ve already paid for the sushi and I have another meeting to get to, so good evening.”

Yoshida thought on it for a minute after Benzo had left. “I would like my name cleared, but they’re holding that over me now.”

“Are they doing that deliberately?” Chou asked. “It seems like it.”

“That’s very likely,” he said. “What do you think of this situation? He said he wanted to hear your opinion, but didn’t wait on it.”

“Well ignoring how I might feel against Shido himself,” she said with a frown, “I think there’s multiple sides here trying to bamboozle others. They’re offering to clear your name if you join them, but it sounds like it was a potential they might’ve held onto for when it was useful. Sort of like how your original position in the Diet was given because it was useful for them to make it look like things were changing back then. Which nobody deserves, least of all you because you’re a hard worker with integrity. They want you back to bulk up their numbers if this party split happens, so they can keep to their original party rather than joining him to keep an advantage.”

“That’s what I suspect is behind this offer too,” Yoshida said. “You’re quite perceptive.”

“I’ve read about a situation like that before, that’s all,” Chou said. “Bulking up your side’s numbers with anybody as long as you can control them… it’s underhanded, but it can work.”

He nodded. “True, and it’s not illegal as long as the process is legitimately done. They have the resources to help overturn my current reputation. And yet, it would be done through their efforts, not mine. He may have asked you along thinking that you’d naively encourage me to go for this.”

“It’d be the easy way, but then they’d have some control over you. But it sounds like Shido would be the main one controlling all these tricks. It’s something like you were talking about another night; he’s using attractive words and phrases to garner positive attention while distracting from negative aspects. Kuramoto-san there even mentioned that he didn’t know much about the Transport scandal, which seems suspicious to me.”

“Knowing more about that could illuminate matters,” Yoshida said. “However, what we know now makes it clear that having independent representatives should be valuable towards making change. It would be harder, but I may have more of an impact if I keep going as I am.”

“You’ve got this,” Chou said, smiling at him. Then she tapped her plate with her chopsticks. “And if he’s already paid, I’m going to sneak a piece or two back home for my cat.”

He chuckled at that. “May as well not let good things go to waste. Thank you for coming along today; your presence is always encourage.”

Morgana was very appreciative of the sushi too.


	64. Reverse Moon

6/27

As the school day started, Morgana slipped out of the room to investigate the distortion she’d sensed. Chou listened in to her classes as usual. There were some interesting lectures through the day, even a good discussion where her classmates weren’t too surprised when she joined in. Most of them felt at least neutral about her, which made tolerating the few suspicious ones easier. Perhaps by next semester’s start, she could have a good reputation around school.

She spotted Makoto on her way to lunch with Ann, Yuuki, and Seong. Makoto needed some more perspective on the world, and in general might be happier with more friends. With that in mind, Chou called over, “Hey! Wanna join us for lunch?”

“Sure, it should be fine,” she said. And not long into lunch, she brought out her phone and frowned. “Oh, it’s that guy again.”

“Tsukasa?” Chou asked.

Makoto nodded and put her phone away. “He was persistent about texting me yesterday and keeps saying that he’ll listen, that he understands me. But we’ve hardly talked in person. It’s annoying rather than charming.”

“But he’s supposed to be dating Eiko?” Ann said. “I wonder if he’s delusional; my agency recommended that I don’t give my number away to fans in case of that.”

“He’s definitely suspicious,” Ryuji said. “It might be better to block him.”

“Not for now, but eventually,” Makoto said. “I tried to talk with Eiko about it before classes started today, but she was chattering too much about how he’d taken her out to Destinyland yesterday. When I asked her about him, she couldn’t think of anything to say other than he wasn’t bad and he was sweet in always listening to her. Other than that, I don’t get what she sees in him.”

“Well a lot of people will get attached to someone who seems to be listening to them,” Chou said. “It makes them feel important.”

“Perhaps, but is that really enough?” Makoto asked, thinking.

“Is that who you guys went out on a group date with the other night?” Yuuki asked.

Makoto nodded. “Yes, and all of us save for Eiko thinks that Tsukasa is trouble. It’s going to be a headache trying to prove it to her, but she might end up in big trouble.”

“The way he’s trying to hook Makoto while he’s already got Eiko is definitely a bad sign,” Chou added.

“It sure sounds like a bad idea,” Seong said. “But maybe with your undercover detective work, you can help her.”

“That’s the plan,” Makoto said seriously. “Just have to find a way to convince her.” Then she chuckled. “It’d be great if we could follow the Cake Knight’s methods and use Angel Food Cake of Truth to get him to confess to what he’s up to.”

The others were surprised a moment; Shiho was the first to start laughing while Chou retorted, “But what you didn’t expect was that we gave him Devil Food Cake of Lies beforehand and the two cakes cancel each other out!”

“No, truth will always prevail!” Makoto echoed, hitting the table with her hand before busting out laughing.

“Dude, I didn’t know you were a Cake Knight fan too!” Ryuji said. “That’s awesome! Did you see the newest movie? It was unexpectedly great!”

“Well it is silly,” Makoto said, trying to regain her composure. “But it’s still enjoyable, and the movie was pretty good.”

“I’d watch the TV show more, but it always makes me crave cake,” Ann said.

“Me too,” Ryuji agreed.

When Chou got back to the classroom, Morgana was waiting in her desk. “I’ve figured things out,” she said quietly as Chou sat in her seat. “The source of the distortion this time is your friend Yuuki.”

“Really?” Chou asked, quietly, leaning over to act like she was searching for something. “He has a Persona, though.”

“He might have had a disagreement with it over something,” Morgana said. “I think that’s possible. Since he was one of those who woke up a Persona in a dream, it might be harder to accept when awake. He might be able to sort it out himself, or we could help him. While it’s not bad now, it could turn bad if he rejects his Persona.”

“I don’t want that to be happening to him,” she said. “Let’s think it over.”

She had to pay attention in class, so she planned on considering it while on gardening committee duties later. But at the supply closet, she found Haru getting some supplies. “Oh, hello,” Haru said, smiling but not as cheerful today. “Um, I was going to harvest the cherry tomatoes today, so you don’t need to take care of the rooftop plants.”

“Sure, but is something wrong?” Chou asked, taking a pair of gloves herself.

“Well…” While she struggled over if she should say anything, Chou was reminded of the vision of the dead end timelines. But Haru didn’t seem ready to talk about it yet. “Sorry, but it’s personal matters with my family. I told them I had things to do after school, but Father told me to return home promptly for, well, reasons…”

“It’s fine, but I hope they respect your feelings,” she said. Feeling that she wanted the excuse, she smiled. “Besides, your gardening is technically a school project, isn’t it? So you want to take the time to do it right. And semester finals are coming up in two weeks; nobody could blame you if you took more time at school to study.”

Haru smiled back in relief. “Yes, that’s true. The rooftop plants are my project, so I should be allowed to stay and take care of them too.”

“Right, you’ve got a nice roof over them now,” Chou said, recalling last week when she’d seen the structure.

“Yes, the tomatoes don’t like being drowned out,” she said. “My last batch of the Tiny Timely ones didn’t do as well because of the constant rain, and the regular cherry tomatoes are looking better too with the shelter.”

“Amamiya-san!” someone called. It was Tomomi, a clipboard in her hand. “You’re my assistant with the festival planning, correct? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to check on the flowers as a part of the garden committee,” Chou said. “It usually doesn’t take long due to the rainy season, so I can help you once I’ve done that.”

“Very well, meet me in the student council room.” She then headed on down the hall and into one of the classrooms.

“Oh dear, she seems bossy,” Haru said, putting a hand to her chest. “I never like being around people like that; it’s so difficult to speak up against them.”

Chou shrugged; the confidence might be inspiring to Haru. “Right, but I did agree to help her. If I do things right, this ought to help my reputation around school now that people have given up on those crazy rumors that I’m a killer.”

“That would be wonderful for you,” she said warmly. “I hope it goes well.”

Once she had checked over the flowerbeds for weeds and washed up, Chou went to the student council office. Tomomi was there on her own, organizing a stack of papers. “Good timing, I’ve got all the sign-up papers gathered.” She passed over about half of them. “Take this master sheet and write down the names of those signed up for set-up, take-down, and clean up.”

“Got it,” Chou said, getting the names from the stack of sign-ups she’d been given.

As they swapped stacks later on, Tomomi commented, “We’ve gotten lots of volunteers, so the whole process shouldn’t take long.”

“Makoto got everyone fired up,” Chou said.

“I hope they maintain that enthusiasm,” she said with a small frown. She also straightened up the stack she’d been given. “Last year, there was an irritating number of students who gave minimal effort to raising funds for the trip no matter how I reminded them of their school duties. It’s even more important now to get this right.”

“Certainly.” That was just how some people were, and others might have had other obligations to fulfill. But Chou hadn’t met with Tomomi much. Using advice from her Personas, she tried to avoid arguing for now. “What kind of roles are we going to have for the festival? Since I’m leading the fortune tellers, I hadn’t heard what else is going on.”

“Well it is a summer festival,” she said. “So there’s more defined roles over the culture festival where every class chooses what they want to, less overlap too. We can’t have fireworks on school grounds, but we still want some traditional goodies: the art and drama clubs are going to contribute some masks for sale, then there’s food and drink stalls, festival games, and a lotto. Then we have crews you’re taking names for, of course.”

According to the Tarot, Tomomi would like to feel responsible, so Chou asked, “We’re fund-raising, so we have to be careful with how much of a budget this festival has, right? Where are we going to get prizes and food supplies?”

“I’ve handled such things for festivals before,” she said, glad to have knowledge on this. “I already checked with some of the office workers about companies that would donate some things for a school event. To keep costs down, there is a closet for general supplies to decorate with too. I did put on the forms that we’d appreciate any donations for prizes or decorations, although I won’t expect much from that.” Giving a shrug, she added, “It’d be wonderful if we could get a really nice grand prize for the lotto at least, but we’ll keep our expectations practical.”

Chou had a lot of money right now, and she was bound to get more over the next month. Perhaps she could do something about that. For now, though, let Tomomi keep in charge of things. “Right.”

“And you know Okumura-san, huh?” she asked, back to copying names to her master list. “If we could strike some deal with her father’s company through her, that might help.”

“What company is that?” Chu asked.

Tomomi paused a moment to look at her. “You don’t know? Even though you know her?”

She shook her head. “She’s a friend, but doesn’t talk about that kind of thing much. I know her family works with some restaurant.”

“Not just any restaurant. Mr. Okumura is an inspiring businessman who has gotten a lot of positive attention the past few years. He took his struggling family business and turned it into a food empire, with their flagship brand being Big Bang Burger. Big Bang seemingly popped up out of nowhere to become one of the most popular fast food franchises in Japan. Lately, it seems like they’d the best overall because the competition has been tripping over their feet all year due to scandals, accidents, and psychotic breaks. There’s even been a rash of arson and other fires at various restaurants, but Okumura Foods have been clean and robust.”

Other companies had been having trouble with psychotic breaks? Plus fires and accidents, which might be related… that was curious. “We wouldn’t want a fire breaking out at our festival,” Chou said.

“Certainly not,” Tomomi said.

“But people might complain about having burgers and fries at a summer festival,” she said. “It happened at my hometown last year; they complained that it wasn’t traditional.”

“True, I wouldn’t be too happy with that myself,” she said. “But Big Bang is only one part of Okumura Foods. I looked things up over the weekend and they do have a division for food stalls at these events. They didn’t have listings for how much it costs to hire them, though, so I’m not sure how good of a deal they are.”

“That would need to be sorted out soon,” Chou said.

Tomomi tapped her pencil on the desk, then asked, “So what are you doing with this fortune telling thing? Since we can’t have fireworks and we’re not at a shrine, having several fortune tellers instead of just a fortune box is the big unique draw that we’d have. As such, I want to know what’s going on with your occult club.”

She spoke ‘occult’ with some disdain; she wasn’t a believer. “It’s entertaining story-telling, pretty much,” Chou said, then glanced out the window. Rain. “I’m going to be reading Tarot cards, and I’ll ask my teacher in Tarot if she’s willing to volunteer some time for readings too. But I won’t be able to meet up with her for certain until the rainy season lets up.”

“As long as it’s clear that it is for entertainment, that’s fine,” she said.

“We’ve also got a group that are going to do some tea reading sessions,” Chou went on. “A few girls are going to study up on that, then probably take one of the classrooms for a relaxing tea area. Another of our club members has a working crystal ball.”

“A what?” she asked in disbelief.

Indicating with her hands the general size of it, she said, “Actually, I think it’s glass with some computer-generated illusions that’s a really showy method of fortune telling. She means to make it comical.”

“We should see how her humor is, but that could be a draw too,” Tomomi said, nodding as she took some notes on the side. “Anything else?”

“Right now, just a box to draw joke fortunes from,” Chou said. “We were also talking about the possibility of selling charms, but that depends on what we can afford to do for that.”

“Okay, so Tarot, tea, the crystal ball, a fortune box, and maybe some charms. We would have to make extra space for your group doing all that, and right, give the tea girls their own room. Your club would need funds for the tea, printing fortunes, and possibly charms… and decorations you’d need to make your areas look appropriate to fortune telling even if it’s just entertainment…” she seemed focused for a bit, then snapped her fingers. “Oh yes, the look! Did you discuss with the other fortune tellers about costumes? It’d be best if you could use your own wardrobes to be cost-efficient, but at the same time, if your group is our unique angle, you’d best have some good costumes.”

“No, but I’ll bring it up with them at the next meeting,” she said, making her own note on it. And since she had her note app on her phone open, she made another to investigate fast food scandals involving potential Metaverse meddling.

“Appearance is important to entertainers,” Tomomi said, a bit of dismissal in her tone.

“Does it bother you that we’re the unique draw?” Chou asked.

“N-no, not at all!” she insisted, in a poor lie.

Chou looked at her, doing her best to look curious.

After a sigh, Tomomi said, “Maybe an itty bitty bit, but just a bit. Even you admit that fortune telling is all fluff and entertainment. If we didn’t have just over a month to plan everything, I would find something else to focus on and tell your club to leave the fortune telling for the culture festival. But this isn’t a lot of time and then we have to start work on that event. Since it is our best shot at getting attention, we’d best give a good presentation.”

“I get your point,” she said. “I’ll have to be careful talking about this with some members of the club, though. They’re real enthusiastic about the occult.”

“As long as they contribute, it should be fine,” she said. “That goes for you too, especially since you’re a transfer student. This is your chance to contribute to the class trip as is your responsibility as a student! Also to prove that you won’t be a problem student in mooching off the hard work of others.”

Tomomi’s attitude was bad, there was no denying it. But she was giving Chou a chance to prove herself now instead of insisting on fallacies. Progress, then? “Of course, just let me know when you need any help.”

Once they had the names gathered to the master list, Tomomi showed her the schedule for the festival. Set-up would be on July 23 as that was the first semester’s last day, then the festival itself all day July 24th. Except for a few people among the fortune telling group, the number of volunteers allowed them to schedule people for three or four hours shifts. Tomomi showed her experience by bringing out plans for other festivals to show what kinds of activities and booths they could offer. Apparently, her father was an event planner that could offer them equipment for festival games as long as they could provide prizes and workers. Something about that annoyed her, but she didn’t talk about it.

Tomomi felt like that was enough work for today, so Chou got her things, made sure Morgana was with her, then headed to Shibuya. Once there, she headed to the walkway. “Let’s summon Yuuki into the Metaverse and talk to him there,” she told Morgana once she was sure people weren’t paying attention to them. “He wanted to join us and now we’ve dealt with a big target without him. That’s probably affecting him.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “He might tell something to Joker that he wouldn’t tell you to your face.”

“Right.”

There was a small corner in the transition from the building to the walkway over the road, so Chou leaned against the railing there to bring out her phone. She used her own layer of the Metaverse to make sure any Shadows around were from her own mind, then changed over to Joker’s costume before summoning Yuuki. Jumping up on the bar, Ace sat there to listen in.

Yuuki appeared out of the vague crowd, looking puzzled. Beholder was floating nearby, watching out for him. On seeing them, he hesitated. “Ah, did you call me? Now?”

“Yes,” Joker said, still leaning in the rail’s corner. “Your help has been invaluable to us so far, which we’re grateful for. But unless something unusual happens, we won’t be calling on you anymore.”

“What?” he said, stepping back in surprise. “A-am I worthless to you too?”

Joker shook her head. “No. You’re worth enough that we don’t want to risk your safety.”

While he looked at her blankly at that, Beholder nudged him with its tail. Given that it was basically a big winged eyeball, that was the best way it had of nudging him. Yuuki tried to brush it off. “Huh?”

“That’s right,” Ace said. “You have a really good version of a power I had half-developed, so I’ve been focusing on getting better at it myself. Before this month, we needed the extra sets of eyes you’ve had to make battles favorable to us. But if we rely on you too much, the police could track you down and arrest you for being an accomplice. We don’t want to get you in that kind of trouble.”

“But I’m okay with that,” Yuuki said, desperate to prove himself. “I want to change the hearts of sinners too… I want to make the world a better place, and be someone important,” his voice trailed off as he was embarrassed to say that out loud even in a dream.

Joker got up and walked closer to him. “Do you have anyone you hate and fear as much as you did Suguru Kamoshida?”

“Uh, no,” he admitted, feeling pressured having her close.

She still got a step closer, to where she could grab him if she wanted. “And are you truly willing to risk spending the rest of your life in prison, despised by everyone else as a criminal who failed? Because when the truth comes out about Kaneshiro, we are going to have some extremely dangerous enemies who have the power and influence to do that to us with just their signature, if we do get caught.”

There was still a part of him that wanted to be renown. But this was Chou’s cognition. Prison bars latched shut like thunder around them as the walkway transformed to the holding cell she’d been in during her arrest. There was an oppressive feeling of helplessness and shame in her memories of this place. And from the way Yuuki’s face paled, he could feel it. He stammered a moment trying to speak for himself, but the reality of the risk was sinking in.

Stepping back for now, she went to the bars. “We know this can happen to us. However, we have goals that cannot be reached any other way. We don’t want to risk this fate coming to anyone else. As long as you only dream of our encounters, you should be safe.”

“But you have more than just the two of you now,” Yuuki said quietly. Beholder poked him again. “Why not me too?”

Joker turned back to him. “Do we now?”

“Huh?” He looked at her, then at Ace.

Ace nodded. “Your Persona perceives truth, doesn’t he? Why don’t you ask him?”

“Um,” he glanced back, meeting Beholder’s eye. Although he didn’t say anything, he soon looked puzzled. Beholder nodded. Yuuki then turned back to her. “There’s only the two of you? But, I’d heard there were others, around five of you.”

“That is what you’ve heard,” Joker said, smirking at that. It would still be visible despite the mask. “That’s what we want people to hear.”

“In particular, that’s what we want people like Goro Akechi to hear,” Ace said. “Because that’ll send him and other investigators off searching for a group of five. That and other red herrings we’ve employed should cause them to overlook us.”

“It should, but we’re still not safe from this,” Joker said, rapping the bars. “As we move forward, we’ll call in other victims when we can find them. You’re helping to keep the Phan-Site a safe place for victims to have their voices heard, right?”

“Right, that’s our objective,” Yuuki said. “Is that really enough?”

Ace nodded. “It’s a great thing! Think about how you felt when someone finally took you seriously and wanted to help you. You’re helping all kinds of people feel the same way, so they have the courage and resources to seek their own help. While we’re helping who we can, we have our own goals and can’t possibly help every victim out there.”

“If we can help people like you help others in safer ways, then we’ve done good work,” Joker said.

“I see,” Yuuki said, calming down at the realization. “You are doing great things; I owe you a lot. But, ah, the first person who noticed something was wrong with me and tried to help was a girl that I’d just met. I was trying to impress her enough that she’d become my girlfriend, but she just wants to be friends. Beholder was trying to convince me of that, but I disagreed and wanted to keep trying. I guess I’m just a loser after all.”

“Nuh-uh,” Beholder said in disagreement, the only thing Joker had heard out of it.

“You just have more to learn about life and love, like many other people,” Ace said. “That doesn’t make a person a loser. Trust us; we’ve dealt with real losers a lot.”

Joker nodded and waved a hand to chase the prison cell away in favor of the Shibuya walkway. “You should trust in your Persona. No matter what they may appear to be, a Persona’s purpose is to protect the person they are connected to. Trust Beholder enough and you should be able to find ways to use its abilities while awake. With all the people who would abuse information to their own benefit, someone like you who could perceive truth would be valuable.”

“You really think so?” Yuuki asked. Beholder poked him again, then nodded. “I could try. I really wanted to keep helping you guys, but it was all for selfish reasons. Then I do have a lot I need to change about myself before I could think of doing anything as audacious as you are.” He bowed, but then smiled. “I’ll do what I can though, with the Phan-Site and figuring out my own ways to help others. There’s too much apathy in the world. Many people don’t care about the wrongness of the world as long as it doesn’t affect them. But I won’t let such apathy get to me! I’ll help other victims get heard.”

“An attitude like that could change the world,” Joker said, then came over and shook his hand. “And thanks again for what help you and Beholder have been. You let us get started safely; that fact won’t change.”

“Sure, it’s all because you helped me,” Yuuki said, then glanced at Beholder. “Oh, do you still have the earpieces that we got from Beholder? He’s saying that he could make them more than temporary things.”

“Sure thing,” Joker said, taking her earpiece out of her pocket. Ace offered hers as well.

Yuuki took both of them and held them up to his Persona. After glowing a moment, Beholder fired an eyebeam at the earpieces to change them. One became a more elaborate earpiece, something that seemed like a natural extension to Joker’s mask. The other turned into a sleek black goggles, much like the AR ones from the laser tag facility. “Here, Joker’s now has a camera that will send images to Ace’s goggles. And you can still communicate through them, so Ace can be a proper guide if you two get separated.”

“Whoa, that’s exactly what we needed!” Ace, taking her goggles and trying them on. “Thanks!”

“They’ll only really exist here in the Metaverse,” Yuuki said. “They’ll look just like charms in the real world. I’m glad to have helped you now, and I’ll be waiting to hear what happened with Kaneshiro.”

“We don’t know when that’ll be, but it’ll be great,” Joker said, sending him away. “Glad that worked out.”

Ace nodded. “Right. So, what now?”

“We’re waiting on being able to help Futaba,” she said, holding off on returning just yet. “I texted her earlier today, but haven’t had a reply again. In the meantime, I need to be working on finals and the festival for school, so I should do something towards those goals tonight.” She went back to the corner to send them back.

Studying for finals could be done anytime. A costume for fortune telling… where could she find that? Ann might be able to give her some suggestions later. For now, though, Chou decided to go over to Takenoko Street on her own. Perhaps one of the clothing stores there could give her some ideas. It didn’t need to be done now. But if she got it out of the way, it was one less thing to keep in mind.

After being told what the trip was for, Morgana said, “What about something like the dress Chihaya has? She’s a real fortune teller.”

“It does have a New Age style to it,” she said, waiting in line for the next train out. Others were chatting, so it shouldn’t be seen as too odd. “Although the kind of costume people often think of fortune tellers in is more elaborate than that. But that could be hard to find.”

“What’s that look like?”

“Let me see,” she said, taking out her phone to look up images. Before long, she located some good ones. “Here you go. I doubt the school would like me to be in a revealing outfit like these, but there should be similar styles that don’t show as much skin.”

“Whoa, that’s flashy,” Morgana said, poking her head and front paws out of the bag for a good look. “Lots of gold and glittery parts. But yeah, the school might not be too happy if you show up looking like that, and neither would that Tomomi girl.”

Then someone behind her asked, “Oh, is that you, Chou-chan?”

Morgana dropped back into the bag as Chou glanced back to see an old woman there. She had a kind smile and curly hair that was much like her own. Wait a moment… “Is that you, Granny?” she asked, smiling back. Once she nodded, Chou added, “I almost didn’t recognize you outside the bathhouse.”

She laughed and patted Chou’s shoulder. “Neither did I, dear, but I thought your cat there sounded familiar. Is your arm doing better today?”

Nodding since she’d had to remove the bandage in the bathhouse, Chou said, “Yeah, it’s healed up fine. Where are you going from here?”

Surprisingly, she said, “Takenoko Street, I have some business with a store there. Normally I wouldn’t go out myself, but a customer wants to speak in person. What about yourself?”

“I’m going to the same place,” she said. Business with a store… did she know about fashion? She certainly knew a lot about looking good. “There’s going to be a fund-raiser at my school in about a month; I volunteered to do some Tarot card reading there. The organizer wants me to have some appropriate costume for the part, so I was going to look around for ideas.”

“That sounds fun,” Granny said as their train pulled in. “Say, do you know how to sew?”

She shook her head. “I learned to sew buttons to keep my uniform looking good, but that’s it.”

“Would you want to make your own costume?” she offered. “If you don’t mind helping me out with my business here, I don’t mind lending you some help on one of my sewing machines to do so.”

“Whoa, she’s really nice,” Morgana said from the bag, trying to peek out again.

“Really?” Chou asked, surprised at the offer. But, it sounded like a great chance, as long as the project wasn’t too complicated. “Sure, I was thinking of helping you already since you’re always helping me out, but it sounds even more fun to show up in a costume of my own making.”

“It’ll be great!” Granny said, as a chime sounded in Chou’s head. Then this was a good opportunity. “Here, I have pictures of the patterns in my collection. I’m sure there’s something that would suit a lovely young fortune teller.”

Fortunately, the train had an empty bench they could sit on to share pictures. Granny agreed that the usual outfits from the quick search wouldn’t be good for school (although she did call them lovely) and the material wasn’t easy to work with for a beginner. She offered over a dozen patterns that fit a New Age style, including the one they’d been talking about. “That one is like what my teacher Chihaya wears,” Chou said pointing it out. “It’s simpler, though, and she doesn’t wear a veil like this. But that would look like a fortune teller without being skimpy.”

“It is a good one to begin with,” she said. “Versatile too; you could wear it as a dress with straps in hot weather, then wear a long-sleeve shirt and tights under it in the cold. Do you want to make this one?”

Chou nodded. “Sure, I think it looks pretty.”

Granny tapped a button on the screen to get a measurement chart. “Good. There’s a fabric store in the area that we can stop in to pick up the material. Here, would you hold this a moment?” She passed over her phone so she could take out a tape measure. “Let’s see what kind of size we should be working on; we’d definitely want to add a few extra inches to account for your height, so it looks good on you too.”

When the train arrived, they had the measurements needed. They went to the clothing store Granny had an appointment with first. It turned out to be a fussy man who had bought a yukuta that Granny had made. “If I’m going to be paying extra for a handcrafted piece, I would rather adjustments be made by the maker,” he said. “And you’re Akiyama?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she said in a manner of dealing business. “Although I’m afraid you would have done better to have the staff mark the adjustments and sent that along to me. My grip isn’t too good this time of day. Chou-chan, do you mind pinning things in place?”

“No, that’s fine,” she said, taking a box of straight pins and following Granny’s instructions on adjustments. The man acted like he was annoyed the whole time, although he was actually bored instead.

The shopkeeper apologized for calling Granny all the way over just for that as she boxed up the yukuta for them to take back. “He pays well, but always insists on alterations or other special adjustments.”

“They do say that the customer is always right,” Granny said but then had a mischievous twinkle to her eye. “But if a customer is going to act like a brat, he’s going to be treated like one.”

The shopkeeper smiled at that, being more restrained on her job. “That’s true. He wants this by the fifth of July.”

“Well he’ll get it then,” she said, as though she was sure the adjustments could be done sooner. “Take care, dear.”

“You too, Kotone,” the shopkeeper said with a more authentic smile.

The fabric store was nearby, advertising itself as helping customers make their own fashion. It was packed with a whole second floor devoted to more bolts of fabric. But right in a special sales section, they found a lovely red cloth with golden stars sparkling across like meteorites. “This is probably for Tanabata, but it’s getting close on time to make an outfit for that,” Granny said, holding out a corner of it. “Machine washable, that’s good and it’s nice enough for a good piece. Do you want to go with this one?”

Chou nodded. “Yes, it’s beautiful; I love these colors.”

They took the bolt in order to get the fabric cut, then picked up a few extras and some end pieces to practice with. Chou carried everything on the train and back to Granny’s apartment. There, Granny showed her how to thread a sewing machine, then sew two pieces of fabric together. Doing this herself, it felt like she could easily make the dress by the festival. This could be a nice hobby too.

“Nicely done,” Granny said, happy for her. “I felt you’d be good at this when I saw how steady and accurate you were with the pins. But it’s getting late for me, so we’ll have to start your project another day. Send me a message any afternoon you’re free and we can work on this.”

“Sure, thanks again,” Chou said. They exchanged phone numbers, then parted for the day. And the Confidant list now listed her as Kotone Akiyama of the High Priestess arcana.


End file.
